Cowboy Bebop: The story Revisited
by Gryphyn
Summary: After Spike and Vicious fight, the Syndicate fails and a need for bounty hunters crops up around the Sol system.
1. Session 1 Asteroid Mambo

This series of stories is operating under the assumption that Spike and Vicious killed each other. The Syndicate crumbled without the lethal leadership of Vicious and no elders to go back on for a council. It split into three factions; the Black Dragon Syndicate (the followers of Vicious), the Red Dragon Syndicate (the few who were still loyal to the elders) and the Consortium (who declared their own side). There were also numerous little splinter factions that formed in the void and all are trying to control what they have and expand.  
  
Session #1 Asteroid Mambo  
  
The soft pulsating red glow of the low fuel light had passed from almost pleasant to down right annoying. The engine of the Mako started sputtering between Mars and the asteroid belt. For the last hour she'd been coasting along into the Consortium's territory, hauling Max and his bounty along with her. According to the computer in the mono-pod, he was still a good hour away from his destination; unless he had trouble along the way. Every blip on the radar was a mixture of hope and hopelessness; there was a chance that some of Lorien's men would come pick him up, and there was a chance that the Consortium would find him. Either way, he wasn't about to radio out to them and draw attention to himself.  
  
It was the last blip that had appeared on the screen that was making him uncomfortable though. It had been right at the edge of the radar's range for the last 15 minutes, and it wasn't moving from directly behind the Mako. He was being followed, and whoever it was wanted him to know it; and that was making him the most nervous out of the entire situation.  
  
Max's hand flipped some toggle switches up and the pod's heads up came up, its amber flaring brightly in the absence of the pulsing fuel light. The ship's status display oscillated between weapons that the ship had on it and their ammunition. It flashed 2000 rounds for the machine gun and two magnetic missiles still left in the munitions banks. Not enough to fight on, especially with only fuel for the maneuvering thrusters, and barely enough for that. He flipped the switches and the display powered down. Another switch up and the cool blue "VOX" light turned on in the display panel.  
  
"Hey. Whoever you are. Stop following me," Max said coolly, his harsh voice betraying his young age. He waited for a response, his fingers tapping the right control lever agitatedly. He was almost thankful he didn't have to wait long; almost, until he heard her voice.  
  
"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Out of gas cowboy?" the husky, almost sultry voice poured out of the speakers.  
  
"I should have known it would be you," Max said slapping his forehead lightly. "It could have only been you."  
  
Her soft laughter bubbled through the speakers, but there was no warmth in it. It only clenched Max's teeth and made his left eye twitch uncontrollably.  
  
"Oh Max, you were expecting me?" she giggled. A small alarm started going off in Max's pod and small red flashers started going off. The words "Radar Lock" began flashing over the top of the radar screen. Max sighed deeply.  
  
"Gillian, are you going to come get me or are you going to stay back there and shoot me?" Max said in a bored voice. He didn't like this feeling of powerlessness. More laughter sounded over his speakers and a small amber light started rapidly flashing next to his radar. "Missile" started flashing over the top of the radar instead of "Radar Lock." Max shifted quickly in his seat and fastened his safety harness.  
  
"Just going to blow up 10 million woolong with a push of a button?" Max said, bracing himself for the incoming explosion.  
  
"Maxy, you're not worth 10 million. You're not trying to buy your way out of this, are you?" Gillian's voice rang again, still sultry and taunting.  
  
"Nope, just letting you know I have the Candyman in the hold," Max said  
  
"Oh," Gillian's voice said, a touch of surprise in it. "I didn't know that. He's as good as cash, and he just bought your life. You'll have to thank him right before I shoot you myself then." Max was relieved that she wasn't just going to blow him up, but this presented a new challenge for him.  
  
"Missile" stopped flashing over the top of the radar screen, but Max didn't see the flash of an explosion. He turned to look, and he saw the missile streak past his pod and go not more than 60 feet past the Mako and explode in a flash of white light. The instrument panel of the Mako flared and the explosion rocked the Mako hard and to the right, throwing Max against his safety harness. The Mako began a slow spiral away from her original course and the blip on the radar closed slowly toward her.  
  
"Just making sure you weren't playing. You really are out of fuel, aren't you. You'd be gone by now if you weren't," Gillian taunted again. "Don't go anywhere, Maxy, I'll be there to collect my money and that crate of yours soon enough."  
  
Max unbuckled his harness and started feeling under his seat. He came back with a crumpled pack of cigarettes. He squeezed it open and saw but one paper-wrapped treat inside. A frown contorted Max's face. "Damnit," Max said softly and put the ruined pack back under his seat.  
  
"What's wrong now Max? Something new troubling . . ." Gillian's voice came over the speakers.  
  
"Nothing," Max said, cutting her off and flipped the VOX switch back off. "Bitch," he added quietly. He leaned back in his seat and waited for the Megalodon to pick him up. He didn't wait long.  
  
Gillian's ship maneuvered under the Mako's spiraling trajectory and maintained distance. Max ruefully punched a short code into the keypad and his landing gear came down. The Megalodon trusted up and caught Max and his ship on the foredeck and he felt the entire craft shift downward slightly as the deck's magnetic locks engaged. The main hanger door opened slowly, the shells collapsing down into the main foredeck and two men came out of the hanger with heavy cables in their hands. They were attached to the rear landing gear on the Mako and with a hard jerk; Max began to be pulled inside. Inside the hanger he saw three more of Gillian's men with their black jump suits and helmets on.  
  
The hanger door expanded upward again and the room sealed. A small light in the upper left corner of the Mako's pod came on and Max knew there was atmosphere in the hanger. Lights inside the hanger itself powered on and the soldiers around him took their helmets off. Max opened the side of the Mako's pod and climbed out onto the step, keeping his hands in plain view of everyone in the room. The main air lock spiraled open and a tall, redhead stepped out onto the hanger floor, one hand on her hip and the other supporting her as she leaned against the door. "Oh Max, I wish you could see what you look like right now," she said her voice still husky.  
  
"And how's that?" Max asked defiantly.  
  
"Pathetic," she said and pulled a gun from her back, pointing at Max. She giggled and her five men around the Mako gave a short but hearty chuckle. Max rolled his eyes. He shifted his gaze to Gillian. She straightened her aim on him a little. "Come on down, Maxy, we can't detain you while you're up there, at least not without hurting you." Grudgingly Max jumped down and three of Gillian's men were around him instantly. Two of them produced guns of their own while a third began patting Max down. The gunmen were positioned so that if they shot and missed, the bullets would sink into the Mako; a fact that was not lost on Max.  
  
"Such well trained little lap dogs," Max mumbled just loud enough for his temptress to hear. The guard patting Max down stopped for a second and punched him in the face. Max took the blow, his head jerking violently to the side, but his body remained firmly standing. He straightened his head upon his shoulders to look into the eyes of the guard. "Do it again," he said, his eye twitching. The guard backed up a step.  
  
"He's clean," he announced to Gillian. He backed up to a safe distance from Max, but took care not to turn his back the man before him.  
  
"Good," Gillian said. "Lock him up," she said and turned to leave, tucking the gun back into the belt of her leather flight suit. She took a step through the door and turned her head as it was closing. "Oh, and get the Candyman out of that pile of shit," she said and the door irised completely shut behind her.  
  
The two men not guarding Max went to the rear of the Mako and opened up the cargo hatch. The hatch itself wasn't even the size of a garbage can lid and the compartment inside wasn't much bigger than the can. Inside they saw a man, barely conscious, an oxygen mask tied to his face and a thermal blanket wrapped tightly around him. He was drug out of the hatch and dropped on the hanger floor and the hatch door was closed. The pressure seals sucked shut with a hiss and the two men carried the Candyman off through the door into the air lock into the ship.  
  
"So what are you going to do with me then?" Max asked the man in front of him. He smiled in response.  
  
"Me? Nothing," he said. Max heard the clank of a boot on the metal mesh decking and knew what was coming. He felt the butt of a gun smash down onto the back of his head and then was embraced by the darkness.  
  
Max awoke to the coppery tang of dried blood in his mouth and a headache that would drop a charging rhino. He was vaguely aware that his arms were hand cuffed to something over his head and that his feet were both asleep and not quite firmly under him. He opened his eyes and a rush of pain took him, but he forced his eyes to stay open. There was a dim overhead light in the small room he was in, and he immediately recognized it. This was one of Gillian's cells: a converted utility closet with a heavy copper airline running through it. The room had barely any space at all in it, but at least it was more than he had afforded the Candyman in the Mako's hold.  
  
"Well, time to leave," Max said under his breath to himself. He stood the best he could with his sleeping feet and he began to wrench on the pipe he was cuffed to, twisting it in its fittings. Hopefully they hadn't fixed it since the last time Gillian had caught Max. He suppressed a grunt and was rewarded with a quiet squeak as the pipe gave under his powerful hands. After a few turns, one end of the pipe was free. He slid his handcuffs off the end of the pipe and set to looking about the small room for something to pick the lock with. As he looked, he screwed the pipe end back into its fitting on the other side of the wall. A small pile of dust was in one corner and he managed to find a small screw and an Allen wrench entombed in dirt and dust bunnies.  
  
"Thank Franklin Delano Roosevelt for the minimum wage," he said to himself. He picked the lock on his right cuff but kept the left side locked on his wrist. The Allen wrench and screw went into his pocket and he draped his arms back over the pipe, his left hand toward the door and his right hand behind the pipe, holding the empty cuff. "Now for a little attention getter," he mumbled to himself again and started kicking at the door. It was only after three or for decent belts that the small sliding panel that had been installed was thrown open. Max only got a quick look through the slot, but he didn't see anyone else in the hallway beyond the guard.  
  
'Might as well take the chance,' Max thought.  
  
"Hey! Quiet down in there. I can't kill you, but you don't need both a'yer knees, savvy?" the guard shouted gruffly in a thick Earth accent. The panel slid shut and that was exactly what Max was waiting for. He kicked the door as hard as he could along where the lock was still hopefully attached. The door caved in easily under his heavy foot and he felt it slam into the guard, his foot still carrying the door. The follow through on the kick hit the guard and Max heard him slam head first into the bulkhead on the other side of the hall. Alarms and sirens started going off. Those were new, he hadn't counted on those.  
  
The guard started to stagger to his feet and he pawed at his hip for his gun. Max turned him around, grabbed his pistol, and threw him against the broken doorframe in one fluid motion. The guard slumped to the ground and began to breathe in raspy gurgling draws. Max looked up and down the hall with the bulkheads to his back; he knew that was the hull of the ship. There were two more doors in the hall, one to the left of his and one to the right. The hall was open to both ends and went around corners and out of sight. Max unlocked the door to the right of his, opened the slide so he could see out and jumped in. He barely got the door shut before he heard boots tromping down the decking of the ship.  
  
"What's going on.oh Jesus Matt!" the guard yelled and moved past the view slit in Max's new door. He bent down in the hall and was out of sight. "Holy mother, he really worked you over, didn't he, buddy," he said, checking over the wounded man. Max opened the door a little and stuck the pistol out.  
  
"I should radio in and tell Gillian that . . ." he started. He stopped when he felt the muzzle of a gun press into his jumpsuit over his kidney.  
  
"That nothing happened and there's a glitch in the alarm system," Max finished for him quietly. The guard's hands went slowly out to his sides and Max leaned in and took his gun. "That's a good boy, you've played this game before, haven't you," Max taunted. "Why don't you stand up slowly and don't worry about your friend right now. He's just taking a little nap." The guard got to his feet slowly and carefully. He slowly turned to face Max, his face drained of color and his eyes full of panic.  
  
"Alarms bother me. Shut it off," Max said quietly.  
  
"I have to radio in," the guard stammered out.  
  
"Do it."  
  
"This is Alexanderson, false alarm, the door's malfunctioning," the guard said after touching the collar on his jump suit and speaking into it.  
  
"Alexanderson? What the hell, you're not supposed to be . . ." a crackly voice echoed up from the neckline of Alexanderson's jump suit. The transmission was interrupted by Max's pistol firing. Max's arm moved down to point the gun at the man's hip and he squeezed off a round. Alexanderson's hip shattered, spraying little bits of bone, flesh and blood along the wall. The guard's screams filled and echoed through the hallway, and probably throughout the entire ship as he spun and slumped down. Max pistol-whipped him on the way by, his feet moving almost before the guard fell. His scream ended and he lay on the floor by Matt, unconscious and bleeding.  
  
Max charged forward. He really wasn't sure whether he was on the port or starboard side of the ship, but he would find out soon enough. He really hoped he was heading for the bow and the hanger instead of the bridge and the engine room. He threw open the door and saw that he was wrong.  
  
Inside, he glimpsed a man standing in front of the door, cocked back in a baseball swing with something in his hands. There were two other guards beyond him, both with guns drawn and pointed in his direction. He was on the bridge, but he didn't see any signs of Gillian anywhere. His luck, he'd be attacked from behind.  
  
Max dropped. He ducked backwards and let himself fall, just barely fast enough to have the big man with the pipe miss his head. Max's shoulders hit the decking and he fired a shot into the big guard's boot, just under the armored kick plate. The steel toe under that wouldn't offer enough resistance to stop the bullet. The guard lost his balance from not connecting with Max and his momentum carried him around in a circle. With his freshly wounded foot, he spun almost completely around twice. Max kicked his legs back under him and kipped up off the floor. He grabbed the guard before he fell and kept him spinning until his back was to Max. Max pulled his other gun and held it to the wounded guard's chin as he was using him as a human shield, his other gun pointed at the other two guards in the room.  
  
"Drop it," Max said to the guards. The wounded guard he was now mostly supporting dropped his pipe. It clattered to the floor and rolled halfway to the other guards. They dropped their guns and put their hands out to their sides. Max started to back out of the bridge when he heard the undeniable double click of a hammer of an automatic pistol being drawn back and felt the cold steel barrel press against the base of his skull.  
  
"Why don't you follow suit, Maxy," Gillian's voice said calmly. He sighed heavily and dropped the big guard to the floor. He hit with a thud and began cradling his destroyed foot and moaning softly. He turned slowly, both guns still in his hands, and faced Gillian. She kept the barrel pressed against his skin, and he turned until it was resting against his nose and digging into his cheek. He looked into her sparkling ice blue eyes and felt himself almost smile. Almost. His arms went limp, and the guns feel from his relaxing hands; one hitting the guard on the floor, and the other clattering against the metal decking of the bridge. He stood there, unmoving, unblinking, and nearly not breathing for what felt like an eternity, staring into those deep blue liquid pools. A smile lit up Gillian's face and her eyes seemed to go from sparkling to glowing and she stepped closer to Max. She pressed her chest to his and stood on her tiptoes and her lips went to his ear.  
  
"Still not killing people?" she whispered sensuously, her hot breath making Max fight back a wash of goose bumps. Max felt her move the gun from her right hand to her left. He could feel the guard on the floor twitch and start to squirm more. Gillian's tongue flicked out against Max's ear and he was unable to suppress the shiver or the goosebumps this time. She gave his earlobe a soft bite as she pulled the trigger of her pistol. Max felt the guard on the floor twitch and then lay still. "Was it as good for you as it was for me, Max?" she breathed huskily into his ear. She giggled and backed up a step. She was flush with excitement, her eyes glazed part way over, and her heart was beating so hard Max could see her jumpsuit move with its quickened rhythm. Max just stood there, starting at her, his eyes meeting and not leaving hers.  
  
Gillian's remaining two men were standing, their mouths open and their eyes wide. They slowly looked at each other and then back to the body on the floor. After another quick glance at each other, they retrieved their weapons and resumed their positions on the bridge.  
  
"See how easy they are to train? Besides, drones like these are so much easier and cheaper to find new than to give medical attention to. You didn't make the others have to die, did you?" Gillian asked, her eyes still glazed. She stuck the tip of her tongue out between her lips and licked them seductively.  
  
"One will be fine in a few days. I shot the other one. I imagine you'll let him bleed to death," Max said coolly. He was beginning to flush, too, but with anger instead of excitement. Gillian giggled a little.  
  
"Well, whatever works best for me. The Consortium will pay better than the police for you, however, and that's where we're going now. I'd worry about that rather than the guard bleeding out and dying because you shot him. Now, be a dear and put this back on," she said and tapped the empty cuff dangling from his left wrist with her pistol. Max instead twisted forward, the empty cuff flying to the end of the slide on the gun and down into the space between the hammer and the slide. He jerked forward and she pulled the trigger, clamping the cuff in place, not firing the bullet in the chamber as it should have. Another quick flip of the wrist and the gun slid to the end of the handcuff catch and off into his ready right hand. He pulled the hammer back again and spun her around into him with the gun to her liver before she even realized fully what had happened.  
  
"Tell your men to drop their guns," Max whispered into Gillian's ear. He felt her try to twitch and Max dug the gun in, the front sight grinding against the base of her rib cage. "I can't stop until you let me," he whispered again. Gillian let out a little whimper.  
  
"Schmitt, Krunor, drop your guns," she said softly.  
  
"I don't think they heard you," Max said softly, twisting her right wrist harshly with his meaty hand. "Tell them again. As a matter of fact, tell everyone." Max felt Gillian's body soften a little against his and she reached up and touched what Max now saw was a small silver disk on the inside of the flight suit's collar.  
  
"All hands to the bridge. We've been taken over by our prisoner," she said. Max heard her voice over the speakers in the bridge and the two men running the ship tossed their guns to the back of the room, one skittering to a stop against the dead man, the other sliding against the metal grating until it hit Max's boot.  
  
"Good girl. Let's go for a little walk," Max said and pushed her forward with his leg and body. He forced her to the front of the bridge, where he was surrounded by glass windows and partially hidden by the front of the helm system. Gillian was still positioned in front of her as a shield as her remaining 5 men came in, looking confused. The three that came in from the port side hall had their guns drawn. All five of them saw their Captain simultaneously. Some of them vaguely seemed to register that there were 4 guns on the floor before they drew their guns and pointed them in the direction of Max.  
  
"No!" Gillian yelled. "Don't shoot! You'll break the glass and we'll all die!" she said in a panic. Two of the five men looked confused and the other kept their aim in the direction of Max. "Put your guns down, and that's an order," she said sternly. They all dropped their weapons and added to the growing collection on the deck. "All right cowboy, you have a military ship with a crew of 7 unarmed men and their Captain who all work for the Consortium. How do you plan on getting out of this one?" Gillian growled at him.  
  
"Set a course change," Max said, looking at the helmsman. "We're going to Robinson's." A very concerned look crossed the helmsman's face as he laid in the coordinates. Concern was showing on the faces of the rest of the crew as well.  
  
"Sir, Robinson's Asteroid is approximately 30 minutes away," the helmsmen said nervously.  
  
"That means we'll be within weapon reach in five," Max said, watching the stars shift position as the ship made a graceful arc to starboard. The helmsmen swallowed hard. Max stared at the seven men before him. Three of them in the back had begun to relax, and this was making Max nervous. One hero would knock the whole plan out of control and he couldn't have that; mostly because if things got out of hand in a hurry, they would all die. The type of loyalty that Gillian demanded didn't exactly need intelligence as a pre-requisite and that would actually be a hindrance under her command.  
  
"You there, in the middle," Max said nodding to the man in the center of the back of the room. "Go get five pair of handcuffs so all of you can be a little less comfortable," Max said. The man scowled and nodded and disappeared. "The rest of you, come forward and keep your and hands in the air. To the sides, boys, no body touches anybody. Keep 'em there until he gets back with your new jewelery."  
  
The men all moved forward and did as they were told. It was another minute before the guard returned with the cuffs.  
  
"Hand cuff yourselves to that bar a head of you. Both hands get a bracelet, gentlemen," Max said. "Hey, open a channel, to frequency 822 point 7891."  
  
"Channel open, sir," the navigator said, his voice cracking nervously.  
  
"Tom, you there?" Max said in a slightly louder than normal voice.  
  
"Tom's down in the hanger, this is Jen. Identify yourself," a voice said over the speakers in the bridge, accompanied be a lot of feed back. All of the crew cringed and Max could feel Gillian tighten up.  
  
"Turn your VOX off," he said softly. Her hand went to her collar and pressed the small silver disk again.  
  
"Jen, this is Morgan, I'm coming in on the ship you have on your radar screen. Do not shoot," Max said very clearly. They all heard a chuckling come over the speakers.  
  
"Morgan, we've been expecting you. We heard about you getting away from Europa. We were wondering how long it would take you to coast out here after getting through the gate," Jen said and started laughing softly. Max could hear an alarm buzzer coming softly through the speakers and Jen stopped laughing. "Morgan, you're sure this is you coming in? I have something a lot bigger than the Mako on my screen here," Jen's voice quivered nervously.  
  
"I know, I'm not in the Mako. That's why I was very clear when I said to not shoot," Max said again calmly. "Why don't you send an escort out to meet us and have an ambassador ready when we land," Max added. He could hear a door open and slam in the background,  
  
"What the hell!" said a gruff deep voice. "Who the . . ." it started to shout.  
  
"Tom! Listen, its Max. I was on my way back and I got a little side tracked," Max said into the room.  
  
"Well, you don't say," Tom's voice echoed through the bridge of the Megalodon.  
  
"No, I do say. Listen, I'm gonna need an ambassador when we land, and preferably an escort to the third tier just in case the Consortium decides to come get their ship.  
  
"Done. Anything else?" Tom's voice came back, sounding serious, but with a twinkle of laughter trying to peek through.  
  
"Yeah. I got the Candyman," Max said matter of factly. Laughter poured over the speakers.  
  
"You got a 375 million woolong ship, plus weapons. Who the hell cares about a 3 and a half million dollar bounty head!" Tom said, still laughing.  
  
"I also have Gillian Vallemara," Max said. Tom stopped laughing.  
  
"You have who?"  
  
"Yup. You know anyone else that has a vendetta against me that works for the Consortium?"  
  
"No one that's the captain of a 'Don. Ambassadors are waiting. Should be here in about 20 minutes. Just don't let them do anything stupid; I'd hate to blow that thing up on the pad," Tom said coolly. A rustling sound followed by the undeniable opening of a lighter and the striking of a flint was heard quietly over the speakers.  
  
"I'd hate for you to have to, Robinson," Max said. He nodded to the navigator and he turned the radio off.  
  
"You like this, don't you. You like the power, the control," Gillian hissed after a moment of silence. Max shrugged and dug the gun in a little deeper, twisted her wrist a little harder.  
  
"There's no power here and no control. There is only people who are willing to act and those that are unwilling. I'm holding the gun because you made a mistake. The fortune could switch in an instant," Max said loud enough for the entire bridge to hear him.  
  
"But it won't, will it Max," Gillian said and her body went even more limp. Max tapped the pistol against her rib cage.  
  
"I think you need to be a little less relaxed," Max said softly. "The situation favors me because I made sure nothing could go wrong that I couldn't handle," he said a little louder. "It has become impossible for you to get out of it now. If you change course, you will be destroyed. If you do anything suspicious, you will be destroyed. If your men even try anything screwy in here, your Captain dies, your helmsman dies, and your navigator dies. The ship won't land right and you will be destroyed. But I am not in control. I have no power here," Max finished. He let go of Gillian, pushing her from him and backing off. "But I'm still not taking chances. Give me the keys to this," Max said, holding up his hand and shaking the handcuff. Gillian unhooked the key ring from her belt and tossed the keys at Max. He caught them and found the handcuff key, his eyes never leaving Gillian, the gun continuously pointed at her body. The restraint came off with a click and Max tossed them to Gillian. "Join your crew," he said.  
  
Gillian, beaten, walked up to her crew and handcuffed herself to the same bar that they were chained to. Max sat against the handrail in front of the bridge's windows and waited patiently for the next 19 minutes to get over with. They were some of the longest minutes of his life.  
  
The Megalodon landed, the helmsman responded perfectly to the commands given to him by the control tower. As they landed they could see 25 men in full combat armor, each carrying brand new military issue A-7 sub-machine guns. The doors to the Megalodon opened and the ambassadors poured into the ship, heading directly for the bridge.  
  
"Maxwell Morgan," said one of the ambassadors as he stepped forward. It wasn't a question, it was a statement. Max noted that this was one of the few people in Robinson's command that had had extensive military training.  
  
"Yeah," Max said, still leaning on the railing.  
  
"I am to escort you to the hanger immediately. A pilot will bring your ship to the hanger for refitting and refuel," he said harshly. Max nodded and stood up. He walked to toward the ambassador, tossing the gun to the helmsman. He gave a wry smile as he passed Gillian.  
  
"Catch me later," he said and gave her a slap on the ass. She bared her teeth and gave a little growl at him as he walked off the bridge. The ambassador escorting Max was silent the entire way to the main hanger. Max figured he must have been a new recruit, that or he was still gung-ho from the military. As they entered the building he could hear the engine on the Mako fire up and he heard the thrusters kick in. The door in front of him was opened just as he heard the slight scraping of metal on metal from the landing gear of the Mako rubbing on the decking of the Megalodon.  
  
Inside the hanger, there were a small assortment of mono-racers, and then a bright red one in the very back that looked like it had been through hell and back. A huge black man in tan mechanic's coveralls sauntered up to Max and the ambassador that had escorted him left through the door they had just entered.  
  
"Mr. Robinson," Max said respectfully and bowed his head a little bit.  
  
"Mr. Morgan," Robinson said with the same tone and gesture. A moment of pause was shared between the two and Robinson was the first to break it. "So, you have a bounty to turn in to me then."  
  
"Yeah, he's somewhere on the 'Don. I don't know where they stashed him. I was too busy getting here before the Consortium picked us up," Max said plainly. He was looking around the hanger and one mono-racer caught his eye; a big red racer. "Is that the Swordfish back there?" he asked, some excitement showing in his voice.  
  
"What? Oh, yeah. We intercepted it on a Consortium freighter. Old man Doohan put out a bounty for it. He said 'If Spiegel ain't usin' her no more, ain't nobody gonna use her.' It's only 5 mil, and I told the old man we'd trade him for some parts if he picked up hazard pay for the shipping. It's working out better for both of us this way," Robinson said matter of factly. Max started wandering across the enormous hanger to go over and see her.  
  
"I never thought I'd see this thing up close. She still the fastest in the Sol system?" Max asked. He had suddenly become almost giddy with excitement.  
  
"She's supposed to be. She's pretty banged up right now though. What was left of the Syndicate didn't do her any favors. Consortium stole her from them and banged her up some more. We took it from the Consortium and she took some flak from that attack. Engine still kicks over just fine, and she's gotta be the most responsive mono-racer I've ever seen."  
  
"Wow," Max mumbled and looked at his fingers after running them along the hull. "Must have been something when she was new."  
  
"She will be again. Doohan can't help but tinker and he'll get her back to her prime condition in no time, whether she just sits on his floor or whether she gets used." Max only nodded in response and came around the rear of the craft, meeting back up with Robinson.  
  
"Well, about my pay then," he said, the excitement gone from his voice, but not from his eyes.  
  
"We should negotiate that. It seems the Consortium is rather concerned about the welfare of one Captain Vallemara. They were informed that I'm both concerned about the welfare of my crew and our operations out here. They agreed that it is wise for a business man to be concerned about his property and workers and that perhaps an agreement could be made to the benefit of both parties," Robinson said, a small smile creeping onto his face.  
  
"I bet they did. What did you say to that?" Max asked. Just then the ambassadors walked back in with their 9 captives bound and at gunpoint. The door had no more than closed before an explosion rocked the building and a fine layer of dust settled down on everything and everyone in the hanger. Maintenance crews working on the ships inside looked around nervously. The Ambassadors marched the prisoners through the hanger to another steel security door and inside. Both Max and Robinson watched them disappear and the door close behind them.  
  
"I'll have to say 'we recovered your Captain with her space craft, but the damn thing had a bomb set in it and blew up on our launch pad. Aside from a pact of non-hostility toward each other, we will need about 10 million woolong for repairs and for the family of one of our dock workers that were slain in the incident.' How's that sound?"  
  
"Sounds damn fine to me," Max said. He knew the Megalodon wasn't destroyed out on the pad, but its transponder was. "One thing though, I want her."  
  
"See, that's the funny thing about finding a derelict ship that's been gutted by a bomb. If you found her, she's yours," Robinson said as he patted himself down. His hands stopped and he reached inside his coveralls and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He offered one to Max who accepted.  
  
"So what then, about a month for re-fitting?" Max asked, the unlit cigarette dangling from between his lips. He struck the lighter and passed it back.  
  
"Yeah," Robinson said and put his cigarette in his mouth and lit it. He exhaled a cloud of gray blue smoke and put the pack back in his coveralls. The hanger door opened and the Mako flew in low to the ground, it's gun arms up and thrusters firing as one of Robinson's workers piloted her to a clear work area. She touched down gently and her engines shut off as the main hanger door closed again. "Yeah, about a month."  
  
"How long for a refit and refuel on the Mako?" Max asked after taking a long drag on his cigarette. Men started swarming around her, each of them working on something different. One opened up the ammunition magazines and yelled numbers to other men waiting beside the work area. Others checked the mono-pod itself out, and still others started looking at the engine.  
  
"As soon as you wake up," Robinson said gravely. Max looked a little confused. Robinson nodded and took a pull of his cigarette. "I like having you here Max, but it's just too dangerous, even with this non- aggression pact. You need to not be here until you can come pick up the 'Don. I'll let you get some sleep, but only because I know you need it and you look like death warmed over. Candyman is okay and the credits have been added to your account. The Mako will be ready in a few hours. Hell, I'll even have her repainted for you."  
  
Max only nodded and slowly walked toward the door he knew led to the barracks and to his own room. Robinson kept it for him because he never knew when Max would be coming back. That, and there wasn't a cowboy out there as reliable as Maxwell Morgan. 


	2. Session 2 Terran Bolero

Session #2 Terran Bolero  
  
Max came back to reality, but he fought it the entire way. He was at home on Io and everything was neat and perfect. He had never joined the military, but instead chose to stay on Io and go to school for ship diagnostic and repair. He married his high school sweet heart and three kids together. It was a beautiful afternoon and they were all outside playing in the sunshine. The dream had started to distort; everything sounded distant. The image began to shift, as if someone had thrown a rock into a still pond that contained the dream. Max didn't want this to be a dream; he didn't want this to be not right. He was comfortable and it's where he wanted to stay.  
  
"I don't want to be," Max said in his dream-stupor. His eyes opened and he saw the end table with its cool blue digital display showing that it was 5:30 in the morning. "Here," he said a little louder, a look of hopeless disgust crossed his face and faded away. He sat up in bed and a soft light came on in the ceiling and slowly brought itself up to full illumination. Max wiped the sleep from his eyes and swung his legs over the side of his bunk. He looked around and his clothes had been washed and folded, put on a chair on the other side of the small room. A towel was just barely seen peeking out from under them. Max grabbed it and headed off for the showers in the barracks.  
  
The barracks were empty already. Robinson no doubt had them hard at work on something. The shower was hot and good, but it left him feeling lonely as he stepped out from the hot water into the coolness of the dorm. He put his clothes back on, laced up his boots and secured the armor plates on them. He got a look at himself in the mirror on the back of the door, as he was ready to leave his room.  
  
A road-weary but awake face stared back at him. Two green eyes shone over the rest of the picture; clear, sharp, and alert. The neatly combed short brown hair wouldn't stay that way for long if there was trouble, but it was in place for now. His cheeks had been shaved smooth in the shower, and his tan skin was clean and free of nicks and cuts. The powerful jaw muscles clenched once and the power under his skin shone through the smooth exterior. Max's eyes traveled up to his hair again and his brow knitted slightly together.  
  
"Get a hair cut, hippie," he said quietly to himself. He laughed a little bit and pulled the door open, walking again out into the empty barracks, his thick combat boots echoing solidly in the virtually empty room. The hanger lay directly across the barracks, separated only by a steel door set into the concrete wall. It wasn't more than 50 feet, but it seemed to take 5 minutes to cross. Max's hand hit the handle and he pushed down. "Gonna be one of those days," he said quietly and pushed the door open.  
  
The hanger was not quiet, and it was obvious in a heartbeat where all Robinson's men were. They had moved the Megalodon inside and they were working on it. The ship was large enough that the roof trusses barely cleared the hull of the ship. Her gear weren't even down because it would have made her too tall for the hanger; she was wheeled in and the treads used to do it were still under her. The men working on the ship had stripped off most of the outside armor and were working on removing some of the weapon systems. Massive power cables went inside the underbelly of the ship and were sprawling around the hanger like an explosion of instant noodles. Max spotted Tom and walked over to him.  
  
"Morning," Max said.  
  
"Last time I checked," grunted Robinson. "Some of us haven't been to bed yet," he added gruffly. He took a sip of the coffee he had in his hand and fished his cigarettes out of his coveralls. The pack was shaken and a cigarette danced half way out of the opening. "Breakfast?" Robinson offered.  
  
"Don't mind if I do," Max said and took the cigarette. He produced his own lighter and struck the flame, drawing the nicotine deep into his lungs and exhaling slowly, savoring the taste.  
  
"The Mako is ready to fly. You've got 50 thousand rounds of machine gun ammo, we patched your armor, cleaned the cockpit, reloaded you with 20 missiles, and she's got a fresh coat of paint. Like normal, we deducted the costs from your credit," Robinson said as he got himself a cigarette from his pack. He seemed to make a point of not looking at Max while saying this, instead focusing on the tear down of the Megalodon.  
  
"How much was all that?" Max asked. He took a draw on his cigarette as Robinson lit his.  
  
"Hundred and seventeen five," Robinson said, the cigarette bouncing with his lip. Max coughed the smoke out of his lungs and tried to catch his breath. Robinson continued to survey his crews working.  
  
"Jesus! Was she that beat up?" he asked after regaining some composure.  
  
"Expensive paint," Robinson said matter of factly, stealing his glance from the work before them to look at Max just for the instant it took to speak. Max shook his head. He wasn't quite sure what to make of Robinson some days. "Anyway, key's in the ignition, she's got enough fuel to get to Neptune if you absolutely had to," Robinson added.  
  
"Good deal, I don't plan on going to Neptune," Max said and started walking to the Mako. It had been parked at the very front of the shop, a good 50 yards from where everyone was working on the 'Don. His cigarette hit the shop floor as he got near the Mako and it burned itself out on the cold concrete. He climbed in, his pants sliding on the conditioned leather of the seat and making that creaking and sliding noise that only new, clean leather does. He looked around the pod and saw that it was probably cleaner now than when Max stole her, and it hadn't been this clean since. He shut the door and turned the key in the ignition. The system checks ran, lights flashing rhythmically on the instrument panel. The display screen went through the regular start up procedures and Max felt the Mako come alive. He kicked the gas and she lifted up off the ground. He spun her around quickly and Max saw the door was still down.  
  
"Wanna open this thing up for me?" Max said after turning the VOX on.  
  
"Open Sesame," Robinson's voice came over the speakers without emotion and the door started opening. "Oh, one more thing," he added, some of the spark entering his voice again.  
  
"Yeah?" Max asked as he waited for the door to open enough that he could leave.  
  
"I stole your last cigarette."  
  
"Bastard," sighed Max and kicked the thrusters down, blasting out of the hanger with just enough room to clear the door. Laughter came over the speakers in the Mako and Max switched the VOX off.  
  
The trip out of Robinson's protected space was fairly fast, and Max was pleased to see that the radar was clear. He needed some time to cool off, and he was hoping to get it at Robinson's, but that just wasn't going to happen. He wasn't feeling like Venus, and Mars was out of the question. The next closest place this time of the cycle was Earth.  
  
"What a shithole," Max said to himself. He still had to get to Mars to go through the gates, but he didn't think the government would find him in the time it took to get through. Max leaned down and one-fingered the keypad and a small rectangle of static popped up in his head's up display. He pulled the trigger on his right control stick and the channel changed. He stopped when he got to 99. The static changed to the end of a commercial and then the familiar cheesy western music cropped up.  
  
"AMIGO!" shouted an all too familiar man. "How are all 450,000 bounty hunters in the Sol System doing!" Max actually cringed down in his seat, producing another squeak from the leather.  
  
"It's been a long six months off the air, but we're back to give you all the news on the desperate desperados and the vile villains in the system!" the blonde bimbo squealed. They were replaced by the "Today's Menu" screen and Max was almost pleasant to see that he was the first one shown.  
  
"Maxwell Morgan is wanted for destruction of private property, destruction of military property, theft of military property, and forcing his way out of a Martian Military compound! He was last seen in the Mars vicinity and should be considered very dangerous!" the man said again, with some extremely too close close-ups on his face and eyes.  
  
"He's worth a 7 and a half million! His bounty was raised by an anonymous source right before the broadcast! Keep your eyes on this one!" the dizzy blonde squealed. The picture they flashed up of him was in his Martian Special Forces uniform, his dress blacks. His hair was closely cropped to his head and he was a year younger, but the eyes were unmistakable. They were the calm, cool eyes of a predator simply waiting for his opportunity to strike.  
  
"Next up is this city slicker from Io, Lelund Kromwell. He's wanted for armed robbery across the system and for massive damage to public property. We don't have any leads at all on his whereabouts but if you see an explosion, he's probably not too far behind! It seems that . . ." the dude in the cowboy getup started saying but was cut off by Max shutting off the TV.  
  
"Why couldn't they have just stayed cancelled?" Max groaned to himself. At least the gate trip would only be a couple hours; he was bored already. Max's mind started drifting to his dream and how much better things could have been. He went again to the children he could have had, the family he should have had, and the place to where he belonged. That picture slowly changed in his mind to Robinson's and the Martian Military and the small cockpit he's currently in being his home for the last year or so.  
  
"You chose it buddy, you did it to yourself," he said softly into the silence. He looked down with a deep sigh and saw a blip ahead of him, just on the edge of his radar. His eyes seemed to light up a little and he leaned back and fastened his harness. He switched on the VOX and set the radio to scan. It cycled quickly through the channels, but it picked up nothing but static. The blip was getting closer in a hurry, and apparently it wasn't moving. He slowed the Mako down and swung wide of the object in question so he would miss it or turn around to get a better look at it if he chose.  
  
As he was just passing it, sunlight hit the object; it looked to be a torn up two-seater fighter. Max looked down to the display and grunted.  
  
"You weren't here yesterday," he said to himself. He slowed even more and circled around again with his maneuvering thrusters. He got a better look at it on the slower approach and saw that the entire craft was riddled with small craters in the metal and there was a halo of slivers of armor around the craft, looking like a never-falling metallic snow. The glass of the cockpit was completely smashed out, and only jagged shards along the edge of the frame were still part of the craft. Inside, there was what looked like remains of two people, though it was hard to tell what killed them first; the bullets that shredded the cockpit or the explosive decompression of exposure. Either way, everything on the inside of the cockpit was covered in red chunky carnage. "Probably the bullets," Max said to himself and kept looking through the craft from his pod.  
  
He stopped the ship and put it into a holding position with the other craft. Max unbuckled his safety harness and stood up as best he could in the pod while trying to dig around in the compartment under the seat. He found his space suit, and it too had been cleaned and was neatly folded under his helmet. He put it on quickly, over the tops of his clothes and locked his helmet into place. The small computer in the suit registered that the suit was locked and that he had 45 minutes of breathable air. Max punched the keypad and the lights in the pod began to flash red. The small display screen read, "Depressurization in Progress" and flashed it in time with the lights. After 5 seconds the lights stopped flashing and Max opened the pod to go outside.  
  
Using what he could for handholds along the hull, he made it to the storage compartment under the pod and unlocked it. He dug around for his tether and hooked one end onto his ship and the other end to a clip in waist of the suit. Max pointed himself at the destroyed ship and kicked off the Mako. He drifted slowly toward the other ship and turned around so he could absorb the impact with his legs and not simply push the other ship out of his way or worry about cutting himself on broken glass. He connected with the ship and carefully worked his way inside.  
  
The blood had been there a while; all the water had flash boiled out of it in the heat of the sun. All that was left was a thick, hard deep crimson residue with the occasional spur of bone and other formerly pulpy organ that added some color to the whole scene. It was nothing Max hadn't seen, or done for that matter, before. He looked and saw the same deep craters in the cockpit as he had in the outside hull.  
  
"40 mm penetrators from the looks of it," Max said to himself and turned to where the pilot's head would have been. "I don't know what you did to whom, but they were pissed," he said to the empty space in front of where chunks of hair and skull were embedded into the leather around bullet hole that two of Max's fingers could fit into. He kept looking through the cockpit and started moving around bits and chunks of its former inhabitants. He got the seat compartments opened and found an envelope made of a large sheet of rice paper and sealed with black wax and a signet impression. Max didn't even need to look at it to know that they were Black Dragon couriers. He kept looking through the compartment and found a black metal briefcase with gold dial locks. He picked them up very carefully and looked through the other seat compartment. He didn't see much of interest; it looks as if their lunch had been in there before the decompression got it. Little bits of fruit and chunks of God only knew what were all over the inside.  
  
"Easy come, easy go, fellas. Hope the next world treats you better than this one did," Max said and kicked off their ship. He turned around and connected softly with the Mako and put his tether back in its compartment along with the briefcase and the rice paper envelope. Once they were safely sealed inside, he made his way back to his pod and closed the door. He got in, punched the keypad and the cabin lights started flashing green while "Stabilizing Atmosphere" flashed on his display. Once the cabin lights returned to normal, Max took his helmet off and unzipped his flight suit. He pulled his arms out of it and rolled it down to his waist and then sat back in his own seat. The Mako's engine powered up and he was off.  
  
"Could be a bomb," Max thought out loud. "Only one place to take a possible bomb in a suitcase," Max added to himself and started to nod. "I just hope the old bastard doesn't shoot me before I can talk."  
  
The trip to Earth went much faster than Max was thinking it would before he found the Black Dragons' ship. Much faster.  
  
After his ship was scanned and the credits deducted for the gate toll, he blasted into Earth's atmosphere and headed for Tijuana. It was the armpit of Earth, but you could get anything there; and best of all there were almost no cops. He made for a parking that would take mono-racers and fighters and landed there. It was expensive, but they took good care of your ship while it was there. He parked the Mako on a spot inside the multi-storied hanger, as close to the center as he could to keep as many people from just noticing the military fighter as he could. He'd never had any problems before, but Max was never casual about parking just anywhere, either.  
  
Max got out of the pod and got a good lungful of the air and started coughing. He took a deeper breath and smelled the rank on the air and sighed deeply. "Ah, TJ, my hell away from home," he muttered and made his way to the street. At street level, the city really came alive.  
  
Everything could be bought and sold in Tijuana. Top flight drugs, government secrets, government agents, sex slaves; you name it, they sold it. More importantly, if you had it, they could tell you what it was. Max wanted to get that case to Bernie as quickly as possible, but he didn't want to get caught with it in broad daylight, either. He'd take care of getting a satchel to carry it in first, and then he'd worry about the rest later. Most importantly he wanted some food, real food. Not that crap they grew on Mars. Nothing beat a range fed beef cow, but outside of the cities on Mars there wasn't any range, so no range fed beef. That was the first order of business. Take care of that, and then get a bag to get the case to Bernie's.  
  
Food stands were everywhere. It didn't take him long to find one that sounded interesting, if not just down right good. "Beef and Bell Peppers" was a small cart that Max could have smelled from the hanger if he was paying attention. He walked up to the cart and nodded to the old man running the stand.  
  
"What do you have?" Max asked. The old man gave him an incredulous look.  
  
"Caintcha read th' sign?" he half yelled at Max. Max raised an eyebrow and dug a neat fold of bills out of his pocket. He gave the man 20 woolong and he got a pint container full of rice and beef and bell peppers smothered in that brown sauce that all Chinese food is drowned in. It was the best tasting food he had eaten in weeks. While eating and wondering, he found an army surplus store and bought a drab green duffle bag that would work well enough. With his goals accomplished, he wandered back to the Mako and got the briefcase and the envelope out. With them in the duffle bag he hiked the two miles to Bernie's permanent booth, deep in the market district of Tijuana.  
  
The lights were on when he got there, and he was pleased to see that a make shift door had been bolted into the empty frame that Max was used to seeing. He pushed it open and he heard a service bell ding over the top. The interior of the shop was dimly lit, and most of the items lining the shelves were clocks and small boxes with locks on them. Junk was crammed everywhere in the shop and the only thing that looked to be organized in the small room was a piece of pegboard with what was probably thousands of keys on hooks. Then there was Bernie, standing behind the dirty glass counter with a pump-action shotgun, pointed at Max's head.  
  
"That's close enough, damnit. You nearly had the Consortium close down my shop last time you was here Morgan, I don't need that again. I'm getting' too old and too tired to be putting up with the shit that you track in with you. I don't need that shit, Morgan, you hear me!" the old man raved as the door shut.  
  
"Well, if the Consortium is that pissed off at you, I suppose you don't even want to see what's in the bag."  
  
"Hell no! Take your awol ass out of my shop!"  
  
"Guess you don't want to be set straight with the Consortium then," Max said, he gave a shrug and a deep sigh and opened the door to leave.  
  
"No wait just a galldern minute. Set straight? You got rocks in your head boy?" Bernie said and began easing the shotgun down. Max unzipped the bad and reached inside, grabbing the envelope and the case. "What do you think you have in there that would possibly . . ." he started back up again and Max set the case on the counter with the envelope on top. The Black Dragons' seal stood out prominently on the rice paper.  
  
"Think that might do it?"  
  
"I'm not even gonna ask. Some stray dropped it off; and as fer as I'm concerned, that damn stray will find it in the dumpster by 9 tonight! Now get the hell out of my store you damn hooligan! Out!" Max smiled and walked back out the door. He looked at a clock as he left and saw that it was 5 in the afternoon. What could he possibly do for the next 4 hours in Tijuana? A smile crept over Max's face and he wore it all the way to the Soldier Bar.  
  
The Soldier was as busy as it usually was; it didn't matter what time of day you came in. There was never a cover charge, and it looked just like every bar did in Mexico. The Soldier had a red tile floor, huge oval bar in the center of the room with a mirror separating the two parts of the bar. The booze was always watered down and the beer was always warm. The tables that were randomly scattered about the place were as clean as they could be kept, while the booths went largely unbussed. Max wandered up and sat at the bar and sat on a stool. Nobody was at the bar. Nobody was ever sat at the bar except for Max in this place.  
  
"I don't want any problems in here this time, cowboy," the bartender said suspiciously. A few of the men at the tables gave Max a sideways glance after hearing that. He gave a little chuckle. The tension in the entire bar rose like static electricity before an approaching storm.  
  
"Don't mean to be any. Don't even have my gun on me this time," Max said a little louder than he had to. The bar seemed to ease a little bit.  
  
"Doesn't much matter," grunted the bartender as he picked up a glass and wiped it out with an almost clean towel. "You're done when I say you're done, ya hear?"  
  
Max nodded. "Glass of Scotch then, no ice," he said politely. He pulled his money out of his pocket and paid for the booze before the bartender poured. Max got the glass that the bartender had been "cleaning" and he drank the scotch slowly, savoring the flavor. "Thank God, for sparing Kentucky," he said softly with a grin and took another sip out of his glass. He wandered over to where the bar's popcorn machine was. Real popcorn with real butter. The Soldier was one of the last bars that Max knew of that one could still find such a thing. It was never stale, always fresh, always hot, and always swimming in butter. He filled a bowl and went back to his drink; shocked at the sight of another patron actually seated at the bar.  
  
Max sat back down at his drink and the stranger nodded to him in a general acceptance of his presence. Max nodded back and took a few fingers of popcorn out of his bowl. The stuff was so salty and buttery it almost slid down his throat. Between the scotch and the butter, he was pretty sure it would be wise to wait until at least afternoon to fly anywhere tomorrow. Max stole a sideways glance at the new comer and there was something familiar about him, but Max just couldn't quite place it. He decided another scotch might help his memory and he flagged down the barkeep.  
  
"Two more, Morgan, and that's it. I don't need you tearing the hell out of my place again," the bartender said as the glass filled with amber liquor. The man beside Max began to fidget and started looking at Max out of the corner of his eye.  
  
"Now might be a good time to start remembering why this guy's familiar. Hope he's not a bounty hunter, or this could get real interesting," Max thought and took a good swig of his scotch. The second he started to swallow he saw the man beside him twitch. Not even Max's fast eyes saw the fist coming, however, and Max found himself on the ground with broken glass around his hand, a barstool skittered across the floor, and scotch all over his formerly clean shirt.  
  
"Morgan? Maxwell Morgan?" the stranger and stood up, squaring off a fair distance from Max. For the first time Max got a good straight look at his face and his mind flashed a price under it; for almost a full second Max couldn't believe that he'd just been hit by Lelund Kromwell.  
  
"That'd be me," Max said. "You owe me a scotch and an apology, buddy," Max added, almost laughing. Lelund responded by pulling a knife. Random expletives erupted from the patrons of the Soldier and some left. Some however, stayed to drink and watch the show.  
  
"Morgan, goddamnit, I told you not to start problems!" the bartender yelled.  
  
"Hey, fat man, he hit me!" Max yelled back. He saw that Lelund's eyes moved to the bartender when he spoke and he snaked his leg over to the bar stool and started pulling it the three inches closer he needed to wrap his hand around it.  
  
"I know, I saw that, that's why you're on the floor. But it stops here, Morgan, I mean it! It took me a month to get this place put back together after you were here last," the bartender spat. Lelund's eyes got wide and his gaze shifted back to Max.  
  
"Yeah, but this different," Max said patronizingly. "This guy has a knife. The last three had guns. It won't be anything like last time."  
  
"Wh-what was it like last time?" Lelund asked the bartender. Max shifted and got a leg of the barstool in hand and got ready to throw it.  
  
"Hey buddy," Max said softly. Lelund's eyes slid to Max, still on the floor. He could see that they were wide and this Lelund was beginning to seriously reconsider hitting Max. "It started a little like this," Max said and threw the stool as hard as he could, rolling and nearly throwing himself into the oak bar to give the stool more momentum. The seat of the stool smashed into Lelund's hand and Max heard the knife hit the floor and slide. He stood up quickly and whirled around. Lelund was just standing there, looking stupid, not that that was different from his normal look as far as Max could tell.  
  
"Um, I'm sorry," Lelund stammered to Max. Max took two steps closer and he was easily in striking distance. Lelund swallowed hard and looked Max up and down. Max simply stared into Lelund's eyes. Lelund moved; Max didn't think it was all that hostile, probably going for his wallet, but he didn't care. Max's arm shot forward and he grabbed Lelund's hair. He jerked his head down and his knee up, smashing it into Lelund's nose. Max let go of his victim's hair at the same time and the blow to his face carried him over backward, slamming his head onto the red tile floor of the bar.  
  
"Morgan. Out," the bartender said gruffly. Max nodded and smiled to the bartender.  
  
"He didn't pay for his beer. Here you go," Max said and threw some money on the table. It was ten times the cost of the beer alone, but a little friendly bribe to the bartender might make things better next time. Max liked the Soldier; it was his bar. Lelund seemed to wake up and started moaning and trying to cradle his face; most of which was painted in blood.  
  
"Do basdard! Do boke my node!" Lelund shouted as he kept trying to cradle his face, each time pulling his hands away in pain.  
  
"Yup, that I did. Come on, junior. Let's go get me paid," Max said and picked Lelund up by the hair, eliciting a very womanly scream from him as his skin pulled tight across his face. "Oh come on, none of that," Max said, dusting Lelund off a little. "Oops, bleeding out the back, too," Max said and slapped the back of Lelund's head. Lelund about fell forward onto the tile again, but Max caught him.  
  
"Morgan," said the bartender in a warning tone. Morgan nodded and he pushed Lelund out the door while holding onto the back of his bloodstained jacket. They walked out the door of the Soldier and Max heard a bullet whiz by as it cut through the air. He was sober in an instant and he looked to his right and saw two men in black suits with black sunglasses. One was standing in front of the other, being used as an armrest for the man behind him who was shooting with a silenced pistol. People around them started to scream and Max bolted back inside the bar, leaving Lelund stand on the stoop of the Soldier.  
  
"Now damnit, Morgan, I meant it!" the bartender hollered at the running cowboy. "Hey, what's the . . ." he started.  
  
"Get Down!" Max yelled as he jumped and landed on the bar with his back. He looked out the door as he briefly slid across the bar and saw Lelund twitch to the beat of an automatic pistol. Max fell of the bar to the bartender's feet and landed hard on the tile floor. The bartender ducked just seconds before a blast from a submachine gun tore through his stock and the large mirror between that divided the bar.  
  
"Morgan, Goddamnit, every time you're in here," hissed the bartender.  
  
"I'll apologize if we survive. Still got my gun that you stole?" Morgan asked quietly. He heard not less than 4 men come into the bar, their dress shoes clacking loudly on the tile. It sounded like most of the patrons were either in the process of leaving or had already fled through the back door. The bartender pulled a pistol out from under the bar and Max looked at it lovingly. It was his pride and joy while he was in the Marines and he had it specially engraved. The main gun was gunmetal black, while the engraving was the glimmering silver of cut steel. "Dono misericordia duo unciae ad semel," gleamed in the low light of the bar just as the day it was freshly engraved. Max snapped back to reality by the resounding silence in the bar. He grabbed a bottle and threw it up in the air a few feet from where he was crouched with his gun. A single shot took out the bottle and Max knew about where that gunman was, but the others were going to be problems and he had to move fast. He checked to see if there was actually a round chambered and was very relieved that there was.  
  
Max threw bar towel so it just barely cleared the bar but still looked like a dirty white shirt bounding up a little to high. Max heard an explosion of gunfire flare up at the rag and popped his head and gun up for a second and fired off two rounds, hitting two of the shooters in the elbow. He heard them swearing in Japanese and the clatter of their weapons on the floor. Max ran around to the other side of the bar, staying low. He got a glimpse of another gangster looking over the bar back as he rounded the corner and pulled the trigger twice as he moved. One shot fired and the other made a loud click as the firing pin slammed forward into the empty chamber. The one good shot he had hit his target in the forearm and his submachine gun dropped to the ground.  
  
Max started standing up, using the now wounded and swearing man as a shield to check for more men in this half of the bar. Max caught the falling submachine gun and spun up from his crouch to punch the wounded man. His fist drove solidly into his eye, shattering the black sunglasses and sending him into an elaborate unconscious spin. Two machineguns opened up as Max dropped back down, and he heard the bullets sink into the man he just hit and watched as streamers of blood erupted from his body and the mirror shattered in a hail of lead. Max checked the clip of his new submachine gun and set his pistol behind the bar. It had a full 30 rounds in it, and Max noted with some dismay that they were using RK-10's and they were the lowest of the low quality street submachine guns. They had the pattern the size of a refrigerator and he would more likely scare someone to death than kill them with it. Max slammed the clip back in and grabbed his gun, tucking it into his pants and decided it was time to move again. He rounded the bar and headed back to the front where the bartender was busily loading a shotgun, looking around nervously for a head or a gun to pop up over the counter. His face actually lightened up when he saw Morgan come back around.  
  
"Give me that!" hissed in a whisper. He slid his pistol and the RK-10 over to the bartender. "Reload this!" he whispered again as they slid. The bartender tossed Max the shotgun and Max bolted up and fired at the closest thing he saw that wasn't a table, stool, or chair. He clipped one of his hunters in the leg, and he fell down cursing loudly. There was a smell that Max couldn't identify in the air; it wasn't normal steel or lead shot in the gun. He cocked it and looked at the bartender. A big smile flew across his face.  
  
"Rock salt," he mouthed to Morgan. Morgan smiled back at him and whipped back around the corner of the bar, firing and cocking twice a mid the sounding of the RK-10's firing. The shotgun sounded like a canon over the noise of the small 9mm SMG's and their burst of fire was silenced by two more men screaming. Max wasn't as careful now; the rock salt was only lethal at close range. Most of it pulverized before it left the barrel so it was like getting shot with really chunky sand that burned like hell fire when it was lodged in the skin. Max shot both of them in their guts, aiming so he wouldn't accidentally hit them in the neck. They didn't' seem ready for him to come running back so soon, either, and they paid dearly for it Max stood up and looked through the shards of shattered mirror and fired another two blasts with the shot gun. Five men down, one to go. They didn't even return fire before Max ducked back down and what was left of the mirror shattered in another blast of lead.  
  
Max ran around to the front again, running toward the bartender. He tossed him the shotgun and held out his hand for his gun. The bartender threw it to Max as he jumped up on the bar. The gun was in his hand and it moved to point at the last man standing as he opened up with his RK-10. Max fired twice in a flying leap off the bar and twice more in mid air. He'd have fired more, but at least one bullet slammed into him and took his breath away. He involuntarily curled up in mid air and hit the ground in a heap, feeling his shoulder crunch as he slid into a table. Max knocked it down with his quickly diminishing strength and took shelter behind it, for what little it would provide.  
  
He looked down and his shirt had turned half red from a flesh wound in his side. He knew the bullet had passed right through but it still burned like hell and he'd need to be stitched back up. Max forced himself into a crouch and he couldn't hear the man moving over the moans and screams of the other men on the ground. What Max did hear was the thunder of the shotgun blasting the room quiet for a second and the sound of one less man moaning in pain. Small pieces of salt bounced off the stone floor and the table Max was behind and scattered into booths and all about the room.  
  
"Morgan, you're clear. These bastards aint' gonna tear you up anymore," the bar tender said and cocked the shotgun. Max stood up unsteadily, held his gun out, trying to cover as many of the men on the floor as he could at once. He limped over to one of the more coherent men on the floor and pointed his gun at the man's head. He didn't say a word but pulled the hammer back on his pistol. The man didn't say anything, but tried to back away, using his hands and his good leg to push himself back. Max looked at the man's left hand and saw that his pinky had the tip cut off at the last knuckle.  
  
"Black Dragons, I should have known. Tracer in the case," Max stated, all emotion gone from his voice. His eyes narrowed. "And the old man?" Max asked, his left eye twitching.  
  
"Died with honor," the man said quietly. Max's face went slack, but his eyes blazed. He slid his aim from the man's forehead to his abdomen and fired. For the second after the shot, the only noise in the whole bar was the jingling of the shell casing on the red tile floor. The Syndicate man tried in vain to hold in his pain and a scream forced itself from him, but he fought it the whole way out. Max limped out in to the street, still holding his side. He could feel blood ooze slowly between his fingers, and he forced his crunched knee to work better with each step, no matter how hard it hurt. Police sirens roared behind him and Max started cutting through back alleys to get back to Bernie's. The back alley dwellers were used to seeing violence more often than the tourists on the streets. There were no cops and no screams, just the occasional mother herding her children to the relative safety of indoors when Max moved through their neighborhood.  
  
He was getting light headed by the time he made it to the back door of Bernie's. The city had begun to light up and the sun had set. "Always a good sunset in TJ. Wish I could see it," Max thought dreamily. He pushed open Bernie's back door and saw that the shop was nowhere near as bad as he thought it would be. He didn't know what he expected, but it almost looked like nothing at all had happened. He heard the old man cough from the front of the shop and heard someone else shush him.  
  
He limped forward, the world beginning to close around him. He made it to the counter top in the front of the small store and he fell against it, his gun clattering across the glass and falling to the floor. Max barely registered that someone was helping Bernie, maybe bandaging him up, he couldn't tell as his vision faded to black.  
  
"Got me worse than I thought," Max said and the world crashed into darkness around him.  
  
The first thing he heard was the striking of a lighter, a deep inhale, a pregnant pause, and then a deep exhale. The perfectly timed ticking of clocks in the background came to him and Max forced his eyes open; it felt like his eyelids were made of lead and weighed a ton each. His eyes slowly focused and he knew that he'd been brought to Meg. She was sitting there watching him.  
  
"It's only midnight, don't even ask. You've only been out about 3 hours. I got you stitched up and you're good to go, but no rough stuff for a while, tiger," she said and took another drag on her cigarette. Max began to speak but his tongue felt both swollen with dryness and like someone had glued it to the roof of his mouth. Meg nodded to the side of the bed and Max slowly turned his head and saw a glass of water. He pushed himself up as best he could and a symphony of discordant pain shot through his abdomen. Max still managed to prop himself up and he took the glass of water.  
  
Meg looked on, smiling, her green eyes almost glittering and her brown curls were pulled back in a ponytail. Max could see that her fingers were stained with blood. "My blood," Max thought in silence. The water rose to his lips and she stood up.  
  
"You're gonna be just fine. Just rest here tonight and I'll check on you in the morning. If you're nice I'll even bring you some juice and cookies after I take care of the rest of the kids," she said, turning to wink as she swayed out of the room. Max's tongue had loosened up just enough to laugh a little. The water was finished and so was Max; he was out before he even set the empty glass back on the nightstand.  
  
Max awoke to the sounds of children laughing and to the busy sounds of traffic. His eyes opened easier this time, though still reluctantly. He forced his body to roll up and sit on the bed and the pain in his side thundered, but not nearly as badly as yesterday. His feet touched wood floorboards and he suddenly remembered not taking off any of his clothes, but they were sitting there, folded and stacked on a chair, next to his boots.  
  
Max stood up painfully and dressed himself, but not before enjoying the feeling of real air on his chest and legs, not that recycled crap in the ships or even from the climate centers on Mars or at Robinson's.  
  
He limped down stairs and Meg saw Meg down there, reading to the kids that she was caring for. Most of them had bandages wrapped around an arm or a leg, and all of them were urchins. Meg took care of all manner of strays that wandered into her clinic, even grown ones that should know better. Meg kept reading her story but winked to Max as he came down the stairs quietly. Max smiled and blew a kiss to her and walked out the door.  
  
The walk to Bernie's was short, only about a block. He walked in and the old man was behind the counter, tinkering with something. He didn't even look up as far as Max noticed, but he knew that Bernie knew he was there.  
  
"Yer shirt's torn, kid," he said softly as he pried on what looked like half the works from an old clock. He grunted, sucked his breath in and something gave way. There was a metallic ping and something shot out of the clock works. Max snatched it from the air and set it back on the counter top. Bernie nodded and grunted a thank you. Max just stood in silence.  
  
"Dragon's Blood. That's what was in the case," the old man said and set his project down on the counter. There had been almost a full minute of silence. "It's an." he started up again. Max cut him off.  
  
"Experimental combat drug developed by the Martian military to counteract the Syndicate's Bloody Eye. Effects are similar to Bloody Eye, but longer lasting and with no side effects save for extreme, long term addiction. Getting off the habit usually ends in death." Bernie just nodded in response. "How much was in the case?"  
  
"5000 doses. The only thing the note read was 'For the new Lieutenants.' I ain't got the slightest damn clue what that means, but I think we did somethun good by gettin' it off the streets, Max," the old man said and puffed his chest up with pride. It was short lasted and Bernie erupted into a coughing fit. He brought himself back under control and drew in a deep breath  
  
"You all right, old man?" Max asked.  
  
"You're damn right I'm okay, I'm still breathin' ain't I. Anyway, them Black Dragons are gonna be plenty mad at you for takin' that case, and it's a safe bet they know you're the one that stole 'em. It'd do you good to not be someplace where they'd get to," Bernie said, his breathing not quite as soft as it was before he started coughing. Max nodded and headed out the door.  
  
"Maybe I'll get back to work," Max said as he crossed the threshold. "This vacation's killin' me."  
  
Max slowly walked to the hanger where the Mako was parked. He checked it over for explosives, and finding nothing suspicious, he got in and started it up. The engine kicked over, the computer came up fine, and she lifted off the ground. He was out of the hanger and leaving the atmosphere before he turned his television on to channel 99. He had just missed the beginning of Big Shots and the "Today's Menu" screen flashed up. Max was once again not disappointed to see his name on the list.  
  
"After a failed attempt to catch him, this bad man from the badlands is still at large and evaded a posse on Earth! His reward has been raised by an outside source to a whopping 10 Million! Catch him if you can but be careful . . ." the black guy shouted excitedly. Max cut off the transmission and smiled all the way to Robinson's. 


	3. Session 3 Twilight Cadence part I

Session #3 Twilight Cadence (part I)  
  
The steady rhythm of heavy breathing and flesh slamming into a sand-filled leather bag filled the air. Max was alone in the workout room, and he was in the center, working the heavy bag with a vengeance. Every punch was delivered with a look of concentrated fury, every kick landed with a grimace of hatred. His naked torso and arms were glistening in a sheen of sweat. Every blow on the bag caused a shower of moisture to cascade off Max's well-muscled body. He had been at Robinson's almost a week and a half and he was worried that he would be getting soft. He just hoped that the stitches would hold up.  
  
A few more solid blows landed and Max heard the squawk of the paging system.  
  
"Morgan to the tower. Morgan to the tower," Jen's voice said loudly. Her voice sounded tinny over the speakers, but there was an under current of fear in it, and that made Max put a little hurry into his step. He toweled off a little, put on a light cotton workout jacket and grabbed his cigarettes. He struck his lighter and inhaled the fire, savoring the taste after his hour and a half of pounding on the bag.  
  
The cool air of the main building hit his skin like a tidal wave crushing an unsuspecting surfer. He loved it. He paused for a step and just enjoyed the feeling; it was like jumping in a lake after being in a sauna. He sighed happily and continued on his way to the control tower. He didn't bother knocking as he got there, he just walked in. Inside he saw Jen, Robinson, and the ambassador who had escorted him off the Megalodon. The seat before the radar and communication screen was empty, but the screen showed an old man in a suit sitting at a desk. Max sighed very deeply and pulled the chair out with a defeated look on his face.  
  
"Major Morgan," the man in the suit said plainly, his face revealing no emotion.  
  
"Sir," Morgan replied and saluted half-heartedly.  
  
"Dispense with the attempted formality, Major. Your government needs your help."  
  
Max took a long pull off his cigarette and nodded. He slouched in his chair and looked into the screen. "My former government, sir. I stopped being a member of your citizenry two years ago."  
  
"Be that as it may, you still are in the Martian Military and you will do as your told this time or I will take it upon myself to give the order to destroy that little piece of rock you're on," the man said, still no emotion showing on his face. The radar screen left of the screen Max was talking at light up along the edge with at least 30 blips on the radar and alarms started sounding and lights started flashing. Robinson leaned forward and flipped a toggle switch; the alarms stopped, but the blips remained on the radar and the red lights still flashed angrily.  
  
"Max," Robinson said calmly.  
  
"Fine, what do you need?" Max said, clearly agitated.  
  
"Major, we need you to go back to Earth and rescue a political prisoner. Corporal Anders is being held at the prison in Rotterdam. The charge and conviction was for piracy and we need Anders returned to us safely."  
  
"Corporal Anders? One of yours?" Max questioned non-chalantly.  
  
"One of ours. Until your dismissal fr. . ." the man started. Max cut him off.  
  
"Court martial. Say it with me, sir; until my court marital from the Martian Special Forces."  
  
"Until your dismissal from the Martian Special Forces, Anders is still under your command as well, Major."  
  
Max nodded. "What's Anders' specialty?"  
  
"Piloting. There isn't a ship in the system that Anders can't fly; makes you look like a grandmother driving to church on Sunday morning, Morgan," the man in the suit said. Morgan, Robinson, and Jen all raised their eyebrows simultaneously. The ambassador stood in the room as stoic as ever.  
  
"Fine. I'll do it. What's in it for me?"  
  
"First of all, you will return your stolen Mako. Second of all, you will receive a full pardon from the Martian government and you will be processed without any necessary appearances by yourself as having a discharge under other than honorable conditions. Third, we will drop our portion of your bounty, lowering it by 5 million. Furthermore, if you accept we will pull our ships back except for one and we will not incur further trespassing on Thomas Robinson's legally held space."  
  
"As opposed to if I refuse and you'll blow up this rock and probably double the bounty on me if I escaped somehow."  
  
"I have no doubt you'd escape in the Mako; that's what she's designed for and that's what we trained you to do. However, the other 50 of Thomas Robinson's employees will not be as fortunate."  
  
"Like I said, I'll do it. Now what's this business about pulling back all but one ship?" Max asked, leaning back in the chair and taking a deep drag on his up-to-this-point neglected cigarette.  
  
"The ship that will remain is the Twilight. She is a two-seater and she's the ship you will use for the mission. It is an experimental ship that we have 5 of, and she uses some of the modifications that you brought forward while you were still active. You will fly out alone in the Mako and a trade will take place between you and the pilot of the Twilight. When you return with the Twilight, you will drop the ship off at the base in Alva City along with Anders and then we will process the concessions that I mentioned."  
  
"Done. When do we make the exchange?" Max asked, moving to sit up straight in the chair. Max was getting very tired of this dialog.  
  
"One hour, Major."  
  
"Done," Max said and flipped a toggle switch. The screen went blank.  
  
"You realize you're going into a trap, right?" Robinson said grimly. "They're never going to let you out alive."  
  
"That's just what my girlfriend said before I joined the Corps," Max laughed. "Besides, what do we have here, thousand to one odds? That's just getting this Corporal Anders. Then I have to get out of a military held prison and through God only knows what for defenses while avoiding the Black Dragons, the Consortium, and trying hard to not piss off the Red Dragons while I'm at it. Then I have to get back here without getting killed and drop a ship off at another military base and then get out of there." Max shrugged. "Sounds like my kind of deal," he said smiling. Max stood up and walked out the door. "The Mako ready?"  
  
"Has been since we gassed her up when you limped back here," Robinson replied calmly. He patted himself down for his cigarettes and pulled them from the inside pocket of his coveralls. He stepped out the door after Max and lit a cigarette.  
  
"What about the 'Don? She gonna be ready by the time I get back?" Max asked, taking the last pull of his cigarette and flicking it out into the shop toward the Megalodon.  
  
"Maybe, I won't promise shit, Max."  
  
"You never do. That's what I like about you, Robinson. Try to have her ready; I have a feeling I'm gonna need her before this little job is done." Robinson only nodded in reply. Max headed for the barracks so he could shower. The shower was faster than Max would have liked, but he was filled with a sort of giddy nervousness. He was excited about finally getting the military off his back, but part of him was already sadly missing the chase. Time seemed to fly by. The shower, getting dressed, getting in the Mako and the fast trip to the rendezvous seemed to take minutes to Max.  
  
The switch went fast, too. Max tethered himself to his pod and he floated over to the Twilight and the pilot in there, some Private, Max noted, seemed awfully frightened and very relieved to get out of the Twilight. "Yup, that confirms it," Max thought. "She's got a bomb in her; probably an ELR Transponder, too. Gonna have to fix that when I get to Earth." He watched as the shuttle pilot got into his Mako. Max watched the other pilot pull in the tether, lock down the pod and blast away. He got a horrible sinking feeling that was the last time he would ever see her again.  
  
"Get a move on, Major," sounded a voice over the speakers in the Twilight.  
  
"Is that you, L.C. Upton?" Max said as he buckled in. He started looking around the cockpit figuring out where all the buttons and indicator lights were.  
  
"Colonel Upton actually, Major. Move that thing, we're on a schedule here," Upton shot back agitatedly. Max buckled his harness into place and he grabbed the control sticks and put his feet on the pedals.  
  
"Wasn't told we were on a timeframe here, Colonel," Max said and brought the ship around. The smooth handling and response of the Twilight impressed Max immediately. He also noticed something quite happily; when she was moving, she had an artificial gravity field. That had been one of his recommendations. If they had gotten that one down, he wondered what else they might have gotten figured out.  
  
"At full speed you have 4 hours to parole Anders after reaching Earth," Upton said emotionlessly. Max's left eyebrow rose. He kicked the Twilight down and the Martian ships were only a twinkling of afterburners after a few seconds.  
  
Max couldn't help but play with some of the buttons and switches. The Twilight had an auto guidance system set up to go through gates, get in lines at the toll stations, and even had specific destinations pre- programmed into it. The artificial gravity steadily increased up to Earth's 1G. The plane was constantly under the cockpit, Max noted, and it never shifted. The Twilight could turn tighter and faster than any other craft designed; until it hit a gravity well like a planet and then it was up to the toughness of the pilot to not pass out. She was armed with two missile launchers and twin 40mm Vulcan cannons. The magazines had 100,000 rounds in them at maximum capacity. Max noted that right now, all the magazines were empty. Max got so caught up in fiddling with things in his new toy; he barely realized the time that it took to get to the Mars gate. He could make out Alva City on the dark side of Mars before he realized where he was. He flipped the VOX on and rotated the station to the comm. channel that the gates operated on. Instantly noisy chatter filled the air; most of it sounded like long-haul couriers.  
  
"This is Major Morgan of the Martian Marines, I am enroute to Earth on a military emergency. Clear the gate or I will blow it clear," Max said in a rushed voice. He brought the Twilight into a tight turning spiral and veered sharply toward the gate. The chatter on the radio picked up dramatically with the scattered expletives of truckers and commuters. The gate controllers seemed to be amazingly calm through the whole thing, directing traffic as best they could. Max was actually impressed with the efficiency that they worked. Holding true to his word, Max didn't even slow down. He hit the gate aperture at the maximum speed of the Twilight, skimming a mere 3 feet from a long chained freighter. Max hit the hyperspace of the gates and was gone.  
  
The trip to Earth was taking about half the time it took with the Mako, but that was still fine with Max. He made sure the autopilot was locked on to Rotterdam and sent a communication through the gate system to tell them that he wasn't going through the tollbooth on the other side and that he wasn't slowing down when he was out. They were to make sure the route to Earth was clear. He was sure there wouldn't be any problems and he went to sleep.  
  
Max awoke later, only two hours before he got to the gate at Earth. He started pulling up what information he could about Rotterdam and the prison there. The more information he got, the less happy he became.  
  
Rotterdam had fallen into decay in the last 50 years. It had been pounded by falling rocks from the gate accident and it had turned into the slum of Europe. The prison there wasn't a prison, but it was a para-military controlled base of a group calling themselves The Fourth Reich. They sought to reunite Europe and build defenses to take out the incoming rocks before they hit the Earth, allowing them to rebuild. Unfortunately, they also wanted to establish Earth as the predominate power in the system again, which meant they wanted an all out war with Mars. It seems that they had been gathering men and weapons and ships for the last 10 years and were on the verge of taking over several of the cities in Europe. That meant that they had lots of people that were highly trained and this wouldn't be just a smash and grab run. It also meant that Anders wasn't being executed for piracy; Anders was being executed for espionage.  
  
Max kept trying to look up information on the location of where Anders was being held and he kept coming up with blanks. His research lasted until he blasted through the Earth gate and found quite happily that it had been cleared as requested. The Twilight was on approach to the planet when the viewer screen turned itself on and a man in a uniform popped up on the screen. Max recognized him immediately as his former commanding officer, Colonel Upton.  
  
"Morgan, there's not a lot of time here, so I'll be brief," he said and seemed to shuffle papers around on a desk.  
  
"It's night time in Rotterdam right now. We have a way in and out of the place where Anders is being held; the laundry service They're friendly to us and have helped us out on previous missions in Rotterdam and in other cities in Europe. Our people on the inside already have you signed up for a job. You start in 2 hours."  
  
Max was liking this less and less all the time. He had been lied to consistently so far. He didn't have 4 hours; he had 2. Anders wasn't in some prison, Anders was in a military held building. Anders wasn't being executed for piracy; she was most likely being executed for espionage. The whole situation was spiraling rapidly out of Max's favor, and he didn't like that. He wasn't even sure anymore that he was supposed to get Anders out. Or even that there was an Anders. He was given no description, only a rank and a name.  
  
"The landing coordinates are preset. You are going into hostile territory and you are going to encounter heavy resistance. Furthermore, the metal detectors in the facility will not allow you to carry a gun, and they have strict rules that will be explained to you when you show up for your assignment. Just show up at the Über Sauber washing service and you'll be given instructions on how to act, what to say, and where to go once inside," Colonel Upton said. When he was finished, he sat back in his chair. "Any questions, Major?"  
  
"I don't speak German," he said plainly.  
  
"Du sprechst nicht Deutsch? Auch, das tut mir leid," the Colonel said with a broad smile.  
  
"Gesundheit," Max said with a scowl. "I wasn't joking."  
  
"Neither was I. It is too bad you don't speak German. You'll have to improvise, Major. Being a marine, I suspect you know how to do that. This is Upton, out," the Colonel said and Max's viewer went blank.  
  
"What a bunch of sanctimonious assholes," Max muttered as he started to penetrate Earth's atmosphere. The automatic guidance took over and Max just sat back and enjoyed the ride. Whoever programmed the mono-system in the Twilight did a hell of a job. It glided down into the city and parked itself on the ground floor of a multi-storied hanger. The display screen popped up with a list of directions to Über Sauber and a contact name of Heinrich. Max followed the directions and within minutes of walking through the slums, he arrived at the business. The scent of urine, death, and decay in the slums was overridden by the powerful smell of bleach from the laundry, and Max was almost glad to have that stench burn into his nose instead of the other scent oozing into his skin.  
  
Inside, Max saw a number of people milling about, most of them trying to look busy, and almost all of them doing a very non-convincing job. The place seemed to be fairly well automated, and Max quickly surmised that while the machine was going through its cycle, there probably wasn't a whole lot of work to be done unless something went wrong with the machine itself. A few heads turned his way when he entered, most went back to minding the machines, but one man stepped forward.  
  
"Kann Ich helfen Sie ?" the man said, the words pouring out of his mouth so fast that Max barely understood what they were; not that he could translate them anyway.  
  
"Heinrich," Max said plainly. He looked around casually, but kept his eyes sharp, continuously keeping track of the workers without really looking at them.  
  
"Moment, bitte," the German said and wandered toward the back of the laundry. Max wasn't sure if he had just been insulted or not. He was thinking that he wasn't, but it was hard to understand the words exactly and he kept translating them into English as best he could. "Moment" seemed pretty self-explanatory, but "bitte" sounded too close to "bitch" for Max's taste. He let it slide and waited.  
  
The first German came back with another man, standing about 6 feet tall with a good build on him. He was wiping his hands off on a towel tucked into his belt. He reminded Max more of a waiter than a laundry worker.  
  
"Gutten Tag, mein Herr. Ich bin Heinrich," the new German said and extended his hand to shake.  
  
"I'm Morgan," Max said clearly as he took Heinrich's hand. The Germans exchanged a quick glance at each other and looked back at Max. Max with drew his hand after a firm shake. "Du sprechst nicht Deutsch?" Heinrich said slowly and clearly. He recognized it from Upton saying it earlier, he was pretty sure that "nicht" was night and he knew that Deutsch was the German word for German.  
  
"I don't speak German," Max said after a moment's pause. Heinrich and the first German exchanged another quick look and Heinrich motioned to the back with his head. Heinrich looked back at Max and clasped his hand to Max's shoulder.  
  
"Do not vorry, mein Ionian freund. Ve vill tell you vhat you need zu know," Heinrich said in his thick accent. A smile crossed his face and then it quickly faded. "Aber, time ist short, zo ve must be quick. Kommen Sie mitt," Heinrich said and turned to go in the back. Max followed and they got to a small room in the back of the laundry that appeared to be a small office. There was an actual television set up with a disk reader. Max saw the first German fire it up and move a chair a few feet from the small screen.  
  
"Bitte," he said, gesturing to Max and then to the chair.  
  
Max sat in the chair and Heinrich shut the door behind him. The screen on the TV went to a 4-panel gray-tone with a dialing count down in the center. Max watched the 5, 4, 3, and 2 all disappear and the screen faded to black.  
  
"Welkommen!" a voice said in a friendly manner. The word "Welcome!" came across the still-black screen in all white letters. "Das ist ein Deutsche Lection für das Aulander," the voice said. The words "This is a German lesson for the foreigner," faded into view and "Welcome!" faded out.  
  
"Papieren, bitte," the voice said again. "Papers please" flashed up on the screen. It showed a little play-acting between a man in a flannel shirt and a man in what looked like a police uniform. The man in the flannel produced what looked like a passport and handed it to the officer. The scene faded to black.  
  
"Wo bist du? Ich bin John," the voice said again. The voice was beginning to get on Max's nerves, but this was at least a little entertaining. It reminded him of the typical infomercial voice actor. The words "Who are you? I am John," flashed up on the screen. Again, there was a little play- acting between the man in the flannel and the cop. The cop asked, the man answered. Max was taking careful mental notes and trying to mouth the words.  
  
"Was bist du machen? Ich bin hier zu arbeit," the voice said again. "What are you doing? I am here to work." flashed up on the screen. The scene was acted out, with the officer becoming more direct and threatening and the man in the flannel backing off a little. The picture faded to black.  
  
"Ich denke du lügst. Nein, Ich bin hier zu arbeit," said the voice. The first sentence sounded very agitated, the second was very concerned. "I think you lie. No, I am here to work," flashed up on the screen, and the actors came on again, with the officer reaching for what was probably some weapon that was on the far side of his body and the man in the flannel held his hands up and shook his head.  
  
"Stehen Sie hier, Ich geh. . ." the voice said and choked off with a strangled gurgling sound. "You stand here, I'm go. . ." flashed up on the screen. The scene showed the officer turning around after speaking and the man in the flannel choking him and breaking the officer's neck. "Sometimes the language barrier just breaks down," flashed up on the screen. Heinrich reached down and shut off the TV.  
  
"Stay quiet und by mich und du vill be gut," Heinrich said. "I vill be goink in mit du, und I vill get du insite."  
  
"Can we take guns in there with us?" Max asked hopefully. Heinrich shook his head.  
  
"No metal. Even ein bullet vill trip alarm." Max rolled his eyes and took out his gun. He set it on the television and began pulling extra clips from his boots, his belt and two from the inside of his flight suit. Heinrich laughed a hearty, deep belly laugh.  
  
"Du kommst prepared, Ionian!" Heinrich said, still chuckling. "Aber kommst, ve vill geh zu ze compound. Es ist time." Heinrich opened the door and they went to a closet a few feet from the small office. He gave Max a set of white coveralls with "Über Sauber" embroidered on the back. Heinrich got a pair of coveralls out for himself as well and he began putting them on.  
  
"Remove dien suit, Morgan. It vill not look richtig und they vill not let uns in," Heinrich said. Max took his flight suit off and pulled the white coveralls on.  
  
"What about boots?" Max asked, pointing to his combat boots. Heinrich looked at his feet and the feet of the first man that Max had spoken to.  
  
"Otto, gibst er dein Steifeln," Heinrich said quickly.  
  
"Aber. . ." Otto started  
  
"Nein Aber. Gibst er dein Steifeln. Du mochtest haben dem wenn er est tot." Otto only nodded and took his boots off. Max put them on and laced them quickly, but he had a very bad feeling about all of this. He didn't like that they were speaking in English, albeit broken English, and then suddenly switched to German. He was positive he was walking into a trap.  
  
"Ready to go," Max said as he stood up from tying his boots. Heinrich looked him over and nodded.  
  
"Ve go," Heinrich said and they went out through the main laundry among huge washing machines and strings of hanging clothes that were moving through a dry somewhere in the building. They walked out an area in the back and out into a loading dock area. There was a truck waiting just through an overhead door that was already running. Max got in and they pulled out of Über Sauber and Max took very good mental notes on how to get back. He was going to have to come back for his gun and his boots before he left Earth.  
  
The trip was only a few minutes, and Heinrich seemed to stick to twisting back roads instead of the main thoroughfares, but that was just fine with Max. It gave him more time to calm himself down and focus. Aggression and fear are emotions that will throw a plan out of balance, but if they're focused, they bring everything into light and the world becomes clear. Right now, Max was extremely angry at being played for a pawn, and at letting himself be played into a trap. He was also scared because he was walking into a military complex with no gun and an unfair home-team advantage. They knew he was coming, but Max knew one thing they didn't. Max knew he was leaving.  
  
"Your Anders ist on ze 8th floor. I vill tell you ver to find Anders. After das, du bist on your own," Heinrich said as he backed the truck up to a loading dock. "Zu gehst zu Anders, du go left zu ze stairs. Second floor, take links und go zu ze door ab end of hall. Geh aus ze stairs zu 8th floor und Anders is at end of hall. Door code is one, three, seven, neun, one. Okay?" Max nodded and watched as Heinrich got out of the cab. Max quickly followed his lead. Heinrich went to the back of the truck and opened it. Max saw two laundry gurneys inside; Heinrich pushed one of them out to Max and pushed the other himself. Max followed the German's lead and walked right in.  
  
There were two guards dressed in midnight blue uniforms inside the doors, and Max noticed that these guards were using HK machine guns. After being in business since well before the turn of the century, HK knew how guns should be made. They shot straight, they shot fast, and they almost never jammed. If a gunfight did start, it would be up to human error to not hit Max, and that was a fact that he was growing more and more painfully aware of.  
  
They pushed their carts inside the main doors and Heinrich kept walking. They went through a metal detector and Heinrich passed but when Max went through, a buzzer sounded. "Here we go," thought Max. The two guards stepped forward from behind the uprights of the metal detectors.  
  
"Armen auf," said the guard. Max guessed to put his hands on his head and wait to be patted down. He guessed wrong. "Armen auf!" said the German firmly. Max put his arms straight out this time and the guard shook his head and started patting Max down. "Geh aus und kommst züruck," the guard said. Luckily for Max he waved his arm through the metal detector and then pointed at Heinrich. Max backed the cart out and then came back through. Again, the buzzer sounded. The guard that had been ordering Max around motioned to the cart and the other guard started searching it. He didn't search long before he came up with a combat knife. Max sighed deeply.  
  
"Was ist das?" the guard said haughtily, waving it in the air a little. The first guard moved quickly and brought Max's hands behind his back and restrained them with what felt like a zip- tie. Max just let him do it. The first guard came closer with the knife, moving it in his hand to for a firmer grip. The guard behind Max was holding him by his restrained wrists and had Max in a position that would be difficult to muscle out of. The guard with the knife rushed forward.  
  
Max threw his chest back and smashed the back of his head into the guard's face behind him. The guard stumbled back, letting go of Max in the process, and Max was free to move around. The guard with the knife rushed forward with the knife out in front of him. Max dropped and twisted behind the metal detector. The guard jerked downward to try to slice into Max's legs but Max tripped him instead, sending him into the other guard, knife first. The blade sank into the guard's leg, clear to the hilt and he screamed painfully. Max twisted his feet between the now-screaming guard's legs and tripped him. The knife thudded loudly on the floor, and the guard's head bounced off the cement, silencing him for the time being.  
  
The other guard seemed paralyzed for a second, debating to try to help his friend or deal with the escaping prisoner. That hesitation was all Max needed. His foot went to the side of the guard's knee, hyper extending it sideways until the guard's leg almost bent in half. Max barely rolled out of the way of the falling guard and head butted him after he hit the ground. His body went limp and Max got himself to his feet. He bent down and pulled the knife from the other guard's leg and used it to cut the plastic zip-tie holding his hands together. Max looked over to Heinrich to see him standing in a doorway, holding an HK with the barrel leveled straight at Max's chest.  
  
"Das ist ze end, Herr Morgan," the big German said and a smile crept onto his face. Max's left eye started to twitch and then he saw something moving behind Heinrich. It was at the end of the hallway and was coming up behind him.  
  
"Was machst du da?" came a deep voice from behind Heinrich. Max shifted the knife in his hand to throw it better if that's what it came down to. Heinrich's smile lessened but did not completely vanish.  
  
"Ich habe der Martian. Er totst twei Brudern," Heinrich said over his shoulder, keeping his eyes locked on Max. Max's eyes quickly floated around the room, seeing how easy it would be to get a machine gun from a guard. The one that took the knife in the leg was probably going to be the easiest; the sling was just around his head and the weapon was off to his side. The other guard was just about lying on top of his gun.  
  
"Prima! Geh für der Fürher. Ich habe er," the voice said. Heinrich nodded and backed through the door he was standing in. The guard would have to cross the line of fire and then Max would act. He saw the shoulder of the same blue uniform of the men at his feet and he threw the knife and dove for the gun around the guard's neck.  
  
The knife caught the guard in the chest and sunk in a few inches. By the time Heinrich knew what was happening, he didn't have a clear shot to hit Max. With a quick roll to the ground Max picked up the guard's head by his hair, swung the gun out and dropped the guard's head. Max charged forward toward the wall along side the door. The guard with the knife in his chest slumped forward and made a sickening gurgling sound as the knife drove deeper into his lung. Max took a quick look at the wall and saw that it was plaster on the outside. He took a step back and let loose a burst with the HK in a tight arc where Heinrich should be. The HK tore chunks out of the sheet rock out of the wall went through the other side, ripping through it like tissue paper. Max waited a second and fired another burst, chewing up more of the wall. Hearing nothing from Heinrich, Max looked cautiously through one of the holes he had just blown in the wall. Heinrich was laying face down in an ever-growing pool of blood.  
  
Max had other problems though; the HK was not silenced and there would be more guards. Lost more guards. He quickly went to the men around him and took an extra HK and all the ammunition he could find. After less than a minute, Max was ready to go. He pulled the knife from the guard in the door way and stuck in Heinrich's back just to be sure that he wasn't going to have to fight through him on the way back through. Max remembered the directions and hoped that just maybe he wasn't lied to about that. He'd have to grab a guard without seriously injuring one and ask him a few questions.  
  
Max didn't waste any time in going to his perceived destination. He followed the directions exactly and was facing almost no opposition. That alone was worrying him more than if he was fighting off the entire army of Rotterdam. He didn't see anyone until the stairway that was mentioned in his directions to where Anders was being held. Then all hell broke loose.  
  
Max saw two guards running down the stairs, taking defensive position in doorways and they were shouting, apparently to more Germans who were on the way. Max started shooting at a door, waiting for the bullets to chew through the steel and weaken the lock. It didn't take long and he shouldered the door in just as the Germans in the hall started firing. He was inside what looked like a utility closet, and there were chemicals everywhere. Max's eyes kept shifting between the bottles and the open door, listening for the sounds of boots coming down the hallway.  
  
"Shit, it's all in German," hissed Max under his breath. Something caught his eye though, something that's universal to any language. There were hazardous materials signs on half of the chemicals. After a very fast search, he found one that looked to be the most flammable judging from the warning diamond numbers. Max dumped most of the contents of the plastic bottle down the floor drain in the center of the room and shook the bottle. He kept shaking it as he ducked around the corner to see where the Germans were positioned. More had joined the two that had come down the stairs, and there was a small group all bunched up. Max's head came back around the corner as their guns opened up and a torrent of lead flooded the hall.  
  
Max shook the bottle a few seconds more and threw it out into the hallway by the small group of men near the stair well. He let lose a burst with the machine gun as and ducked back into the relative safety of the supply closet. The Germans opened up with their machine guns and there was shouting heard above the gunfire, but Max couldn't make it out. Both the guns and the voices were silenced a split second later when an explosion rocked the hall. Flames shot past the door that Max was hiding in. Max shot around the lock of the door across the hall and ran out of his room and barreled through the new door. In the instant that he was exposed in the hall, he saw that all the Germans in the hall were down, and some were on fire. Max was out of the room almost as fast as he had gotten in it and was in the hallway, looking over the guards on the ground and trying to cover the staircase in the hall as well as all of the other three door ways into the hall. One face down guard near Max began to moan softly.  
  
Max put a boot to him and rolled him over. The German coughed and wheezed and Max saw that most of the skin on his face was either black or red. Max was seriously beginning to like the potency of the cleaning supplies of Europe. The man's eyes opened slowly and it was obvious he was in extreme pain.  
  
"Speak English?" Max asked calmly. He pointed the HK at the guard's forehead. The guard shook his head. Max frowned. "Prisoners?" The guard only looked scared and confused in response. "Auslander?" Max asked after a short pause, thinking back to his German lesson. The guard pointed up the stairs and then to the right of the staircase. Max nodded, kicking the guard in the head and knocking him out.  
  
He started charging up the stairs at the same time more guards started coming down. Max brought his other machine gun to bear and cut down the oncoming Germans, but he caught a bullet in his left arm and it went numb after a blinding flash of pain. Max ran up the rest of the stairs, blood running down his arm and leaving a trail of crimson dots in his wake. Here the directions changed from where Heinrich said to go. Heinrich said to take a left at the stairs. Max trusted the dying man more than the one walking him into a trap and went right. The 3 doors on either side of the hall all had security locks on them. Max let loose a burst of machine gun fire at the first door on his right and the bullets barely penetrated. Max gave the door a tremendous kick, and the door caved under his foot. His eyes lit up and for a second he forgot that he was even wounded.  
  
The room that Max had gotten into was not a jail cell, but a munitions storage. There were dozens of handguns, a few HK's in some racks and some cardboard boxes. Max looked at the boxes very quickly and saw one that grabbed his attention; it wasn't in English, but the main word on the box was Canitri, and Max knew that they were an explosives manufacturer. He opened the box and sure enough, there were 12 gray-pink bars of extremely stable high explosive inside. Max grabbed a bar of the explosive and tucked it in his crimson stained white uniform and looked around for another box that should have contained the detonators and he was very happy to find that this one was in English. Not only that but it was from Digidet, the premiere company for making easy to use electronic detonators. They also happened to be the chief military suppliers in the system.  
  
Max opened the box and counted 25 detonators and the master switch. The detonators were white and about the size of a match stick with a head on it the size of a pencil and half of an inch long. Max's fingers pushed on the two ends of the detonator and the number "01" appeared on the head. He turned the stick and the numbers ran all the way up to 50 before recycling back to 1. Max repeated the process with the master switch; a similar device with a body as thick as Max's pinky and a head the size of his thumb. He played with the detonators and with the master switch for another second or two before peeking back out into the hall. A three-shot burst of an HK made him duck back inside the room. He grabbed a small wad of the explosive from the box and wrapped it around the detonator. Max put the master control switch on to "01" and turned the detonator on to the same number. He stuck his hand out the door for just enough time to flick the explosive down the hall. He waited a second and a half and pushed the top of the switch down and it gave a little beep. A fraction of a second later an explosion shook the building for the second time in 5 minutes.  
  
Max moved fast, pounding on the doors until he got to the last one on the left. Someone pounded back.  
  
"Speak English?" Max shouted. He heard a muffled yell from the other side of the door. Max could barely hear it and couldn't' understand any of it. There was a pause and Max checked the hallway again for more Germans. It was a mess from the explosion and dust was still thick in the air from the smoke and from the pulverized sheet rock walls. Then Max heard it; 3 close poundings on the door, 3 slower harder knocks, and then 3 more fast hits. SOS in Morris code. Max fired a round into the door and he hoped whoever was on the other side backed up. He grabbed a small pinch of the grayish putty and smashed it in between the door and the door jam beside the door handle. He stuck a detonator in it and backed off a few feet down the hall. Max pushed the head in on the master control and a flash of fire and a billow of smoke erupted around the door. A second later the door flew out of the door jam and Max could make a boot out in the smoke surrounding the door. He heard coughing from inside, but it didn't sound right somehow; but his ears were ringing from the explosions and the gunfire in the small spaces.  
  
"Corporal Anders? This is Major Morgan. Corporal?" Max shouted.  
  
"Jesus H Christ, it's about time you got here!" rang a voice. Max must have been hearing things wrong, his hearing had to have been more damaged than he thought. A form walked out of the smoke and dust and Max realized that he wasn't hearing wrong and his ears weren't ringing nearly as bad as he thought they were. Corporal Anders, the best pilot in the Martian Special Forces, was a woman. 


	4. Session 4 Twilight Cadence part II

Author's note: this is a direct continuation of Session #3. If it's been a while since you've read it or haven't read it yet, everything will make a lot more sense if you take the 5 minutes to read it now. Thanks.  
  
Gryphyn  
  
Session #4 Twilight Cadence (part II)  
  
Max was taken back by the sight in front of him. Anders was not only a girl, but a good-looking girl. She looked like she'd been in the same clothes for about two weeks, she had no make up at all, but there was just something about her.  
  
"Quit staring at her, you're still in deep shit," a voice said to Max. It took him a second to realize that it was his own thoughts trying to snap him back to the situation at hand.  
  
"Corporal Anders?" Max asked, turning around and covering the hallway as best he could. He noticed his arm wasn't just numb now, but it was getting cold. He could hear the blood dripping on to the floor, sounding like a metronome keeping slow, but steady time.  
  
"Yes sir," she said.  
  
"I'm Major Morgan, and we're gonna get the fuck out of here," Max said and walked forward. Anders was right behind him, ready to go after being cooped up in a room for half a month Max walked down to the munitions room and motioned to it with his head. Anders ducked inside and Morgan followed her in, covering the door.  
  
"So you're Morgan, huh?" Anders said and started grabbing pistols. She tucked two into the waste band of what looked like Special Forces BDU pants and grabbed a couple clips of ammunition. She picked up an HK and three extra clips of ammunition for it. All the while, she kept talking. "Martian Medal of Honor, 5 purple hearts, two silver stars, and two accommodations for bravery. Went AWOL in 70," she finished. Anders cocked all of her weapons and looked at Max. "How the hell did they get you to come get me?"  
  
"Same way they do everything, bribes and lies," Max said and swung out the door, gun first. Anders followed him close, covering the stairwell with her HK. They both heard voices down below, but no Germans were on the stairs. Max reached in to his coveralls and tore off a finger sized lump of the explosive and wrapped a detonator around it after setting it to "01." He twisted the master to the same number and put it in his injured hand. He concentrated and made his fist contract around the device. "What's in here?" Max gestured to the door straight across from the stairs going down to the first floor. It had been blown in by Max's first gift for the Fourth Reich after leaving the munitions room, but it was still standing.  
  
"Large room, goes to the end of the building. I saw it when they brought me here, but I didn't get a good look," Anders said still covering the stairs. Max knelt down by the handrail for the stairs and stuck the lump of explosive on the edge of the ceiling of the first floor. No one down there seemed to see him do it, and returned his hand with all of his fingers happily attached.  
  
"That's our exit, transport is right outside," Max said and kicked in the cratered and heat stressed door. His HK was ready and his thumb was on the top of the control for the detonator. Max went in the room and was semi relieved to find it void of people. The room itself had a large picture window that over looked what Max hadn't realized before to be a scenic view of the heart of Rotterdam, with her steel and glass towers still gleaming through the grime of the city. A very small part of Max appreciated that, and it would return to him later; now was not the time for sight seeing or hesitation. Anders followed behind him, guarding the door and keeping a close eye on the stairs. The room itself had a large table running down the center of it, and that would be a problem.  
  
"Major, the windows are bullet proof," Anders said calmly. Max kept striding across the room, but dropped its his gun to be supported by the sling and got another wad of the high explosive out of his pocket. He stretched it into a thin "X" on the window and pushed a detonator into it, turning it to "01."  
  
"Corporal, I need this table moved clear of the window," Max said as he pulled another wad of explosive out of his pocket and stuck a third detonator into it, turning it also to "01." Max threw it against the wall of the stairs, and he watched it stick Anders looked at the table and sized it up. It appeared to be one long table, made of solid oak. It ran almost 50 feet, virtually the length of the room. She went to the side of the table and looked under it. Her HK came up and she pointed it at the first of the strong legs holding the table up. She opened fire and Max saw chunks of wood shoot out from under the table. Anders raked the underside, chewing the wooden legs apart. She had to reload twice, but after 25 seconds of work, the table creaked loudly over the jingling of hot brass on the floor and the table collapsed under its own weight.  
  
"Clear," Max said loudly and crisply. Anders moved quickly to the wall of the boardroom, putting 15 feet between her and the table. Max stood against in the corner against the other wall and pushed the plunger down on the switch.  
  
The three explosions went off simultaneously. The men down stairs were no doubt killed instantly, and if any survived there wouldn't be enough stairs left to get to the second floor. The open stairway helped channel the explosive force to the second floor and the boardroom door blew off its hinges amid a column of flame. The explosion on the window weakened it and broke most of the glass, and the flying steel door finished the job nicely as it crashed through. Anders was on the way to the window before the door even hit the street. Max joined her a split second later.  
  
It was quite a jump to the laundry truck below the window, but both managed it nicely. They jumped off the top of the truck and piled inside with Max behind the wheel. He turned the engine over and the pitter-patter of machine gun fire sounded behind them. Max heard the box of the truck getting chewed up.  
  
"Put your head down," Max said. Anders ducked immediately, her shoulders touching her knees.  
  
"Limber little minx," Max thought to himself as he broke the window out with his machine gun. Max hit the gas and turned right, exposing the passenger side. The machineguns from the building fired again and Max opened up with his, sending the guards scattering. Max put the gun down and put both hands on the wheel. The feeling was rapidly leaving his left hand again, and his entire arm was becoming washed with red.  
  
"Sit up, Anders. We're not out of this yet," Max said as the truck lumbered down the street. Max remembered the way to the Twilight exactly. First he was going to go get his ship, and then he was going to get his gun back. They arrived relatively unmolested at the hanger, and Max plowed through the security check at the entry. The guards inside the shack shouted something at Max in German and waved his fist in the air angrily. Max didn't need to know German to understand the string of profanity streaming from the guard. Max whipped the van around inside the garage in front of the Twilight and killed the engine.  
  
"Upton said you're a pilot. I was lied to about everything else on this little trip, did he lie about that, to?" Max asked getting out of the truck. Anders jumped out.  
  
"No sir!" Anders said energetically and jumped in the pilot's seat in of the Twilight. Max tried to hurry, but it was feeling like his feet were made of lead and as if he were swimming through the air instead of walking through it. He drug himself up into the co-pilot's seat and shut the door behind him. Anders already had the computer fired up and was turning on the engines.  
  
"Seat belt," Anders half sung in a worried little melody. More men in blue uniforms were streaming into the garage. Anders brought the Twilight up off the ground and spun her to face the incoming enemy and opened fire with the twin vulcans. She only hit one of them, and the rest scattered. Anders flipped more switches fastened her own harness. She pulled the stirrups on the control pedals and the ship shot up through the roof of the hanger. Max felt like she left his stomach back on the ground. He loved that feeling. "Where to, sir?" she said, the craft hovering in the air over the hanger.  
  
"Über Sauber," he said slowly. Max started taking his coveralls off and looked at his arm. The main artery hadn't been severed, but he was still losing a lot of blood. He ripped the sleeve off the suit and tied it around the wound. Max found that he was forcing himself to stay conscious as the craft moved the few blocks to the building. "Set it down in the street," Max said. Anders responded immediately, dropping the craft quickly, but pulling up just before the landing gear connected. "Make me a door," Max said. Anders fired a burst from the machineguns and the front windows of the laundromat blew inward. The bullets hit something inside the laundromat and the glass exploded back out into the street, as well as formerly clean clothes, machine parts, and even a few random workers; or what was left of them.  
  
Max jumped out after the fire sucked back into the building. He still heard metal clanging inside, and excited shouts in German that he couldn't make out of the shop. He went in, arm bandaged, HK point ahead, with the explosive still in his coveralls and detonators clinking lightly in his pocket.  
  
He walked in and there were a few workers tying to figure out what had happened. Most of them were missing hair or covered in suit. A few of them had clothes that had burned away in patches. Max counted 6 and possibly 7 of them moving around. He fired a short burst from the HK into the ceiling and whistled loudly. All of the workers' faces shot toward him, looks of fear and panic on them.  
  
"Get out," Max said loudly, clearly, and slowly. Most of them ran out into the brightness of the street only to see the Twilight sitting in the street, gun barrels still smoking. They scattered like cockroaches in the sunlight and Max started moving slowly through the shattered shop.  
  
Small fires were still burning in the front of the store, consuming what was left of the clothing and of a few random workers. He made his way to the back, keeping an eye open for any remaining in workers. He was almost back to where the lockers were and he heard the sound of clanging metal across the main stretch of the building. Max spun around and felt something land solidly on his back between his shoulders. He lurched forward but managed to keep his feet. He spun around and pulled the trigger on the HK, but the only noise was a loud click as the bolt slammed forward into the empty chamber. The big German, the first one Max spoke to in Über Sauber not even an hour ago was standing there with a chunk of pipe, smiling broadly.  
  
"Gutten Tag, bischen Mann," the German said and took a stepped to Max. Max hit the release on his HK's sling and threw it aside. The German swung with the pipe and Max dropped to one knee before the swing connected and punched his opponent square in the solar plexus, moving him back, but not affecting him much more than that. He reacted by swinging the pipe in a low arc, still aiming at Max's head. Max threw himself backward to the floor and kicked the German solidly in the groin. Max felt a squishing crunch and the man spun around with his momentum, collapsing into the burning machine wreckage with a crunch. Max stood up and tightened his bandage. He grabbed the pipe and kept walking back to the lockers. They were locked, but badly damaged from the explosion.  
  
Max wound up with the pipe and smashed into the door of the locker where his things had been put. The locker shuddered and the door rattled open. He saw his boots inside, and thankfully, his gun. He pulled off Otto's boots and put his own back on, lacing them quickly and strapping the armor plates into place. He grabbed his flight suit and went back out to the Twilight, checking to see if his gun was loaded. He saw brass and let the slide slam back forward. He hurried as best he could back to the Twilight. By the time he was outside, he could hear sirens over the shouting people. Max barely registered the gathering crowds as he climbed in.  
  
"Sir?" Anders said and lifted up.  
  
"American West, Doohan's shop," Max said slowly. He felt like he was coming out of a dream; his body felt weighed down by heavy blankets, the air was cold, and he wasn't sure if he was awake or not. The Twilight took off and headed for the setting sun. Max passed out before they lost sight of Europe and drifted into a black, dreamless sleep.  
  
He was shaken awake what felt like seconds later. Max's hands immediately shot to where the controls should have been and tried to straighten up in his seat. He found that he'd been strapped into the passenger seat of a two-seater fighter and it took him almost a full second to remember everything that had happened.  
  
"Anders?" Max asked as the Twilight skimmed along the desert floor. Another explosion off the port side of the ship knocked it sideways a little, and Anders was quick to correct for it. She didn't answer right away and Max looked down at the radar. There were three dots chasing them, and they looked to be about 500 meters behind them.  
  
"Sir, there are three ships chasing us, they've been doing so since Texas. They aren't answering their radios and they aren't very good shots."  
  
"Why aren't we at Doohan's?" Max asked, still groggy. His eyes wouldn't quite focus on anything outside of the cockpit. The ground was a blur of brown and the sky was an open field of blue.  
  
"I didn't think that this Doohan person would much appreciate us bringing in three hostiles, sir," Anders responded. Max nodded his head. It still felt like his skull was made out of stone and he discovered he had a headache "Sir?" Anders questioned.  
  
"Corporal?" Max asked. His senses were slowly returning to him.  
  
"You might want to strap yourself in tighter, sir. I'm gonna shake 'em," Anders said quietly and checked the straps on her harness. Max did as she suggested and sat up. He didn't see how they were going to shake them; he could start to make out some rises and buttes, but nothing maneuver worthy. Then the whole world rose up before Max. He slammed up into his harness and his stomach felt like it was in his throat. Max could feel himself trying to pass out again, but he fought it back and kept his vision from going completely blank. The small dot of light that he could see re- expanded and he realized that they were in a canyon. It was plenty wide, but he saw that it must have been terribly curvy; it looked like Anders was speeding toward a wall.  
  
Max's eyebrows arched and he stole a sideways glance at his pilot. Anders was biting her lower lip in concentration, moving the craft as close to the walls as she could and twisting the Twilight through the bending canyon with the touch of an expert. Max looked down t the instrument panel and saw that their relative ground speed was fluctuating between 1700 and 1720 kilometers per hour.  
  
"Corporal, are you. . ." Max started to say. The gravity of what was going on hit Max and it snapped him back to crisp, clear reality.  
  
"Yes sir. Shut up," Anders said. Max looked down on the display and saw that one of the dots had fallen off radar, but the other two were still on them. Max turned and looked out the back of the pod and saw that they were above them, easily keeping pace. An alarm started to beep and Max looked down at the display. "Missile" started flashing in red over the top of the radar and Anders pulled back hard on the control sticks and Max saw her twist her feet in opposite directions. They had slowed down some, but now they were up out of the canyon and flying backwards. Max was impressed that the Twilight was holding together, and even more impressed with Anders' flying. At least he wasn't lied to about that.  
  
Anders didn't even hesitate. As soon as they were pointed at the incoming fighters, she opened up with the machine guns until the "Radar Lock" light came on over the display and she launched 2 missiles at the craft straight ahead of them. Not half a second later did that craft explode in a white ball of light and flame. Anders banked hard to port and used the drag of the Twilight to slow them down just enough for her to get a bead on the second ship and she cut it in half with the 40mm vulcans.  
  
Max was in awe. He'd never done anything like this in recon before, not with the skill and finesse that Anders just displayed. The radar showed the third blip appear on its edge and Anders took off for it immediately. She had acquired a missile lock on the target and was prepared to fire when a panicked voice came over the radio.  
  
"Don't shoot!" the voice pleaded. Anders looked to Max and Max shook his head no.  
  
"Who is this? Identify yourself," Max said with a strength that he didn't even know he had.  
  
"This is Xio Lin," the voice said, still shaking.  
  
"Who are you working for? Black Dragons? Consortium?" Max asked. Silence answered him. "You'd better start talking. You might just live through this if you do. If you don't, you won't live to hit the desert floor," Max said with anger joining the strength in his voice. Still there was nothing. Max waited a second and started laughing. Anders looked over at him a confused look on her face.  
  
"You have to be Black Dragon. The Consortium doesn't have power on Earth yet and if you were Red Dragons, there wouldn't have been 3 fighters, there would have been 10. Hope it's been a good life," Max said and flipped the radio off. Max pushed the thumb switch for the missile himself. Max watched as the twin trails of smoke shot out from the Twilight. A few seconds later there was an explosion a little over 4 kilometers from them; Max simply shook his head.  
  
"We need to get to Doohan's place," Max said.  
  
"Where is he located, sir?" Anders asked obediently.  
  
"An old airfield in New Mexico. We can't be far from there now," Max answered and turned the radio on. He turned it to 300.780 and cleared his voice. "Miles, Doohan, anyone there?"  
  
"Yeah, Miles here, what do you want?" sounded a familiar voice to Max's ears.  
  
"Miles, it's Morgan. I'm in a pretty big hurt and I need some emergency work. If you got the time I got the cash," Max said.  
  
"Morgan, eh? Yeah, I can see what I can do. The old man's at the coast picking up a delivery," Miles said back. The sound of ice clinking in a glass could be heard through the radio.  
  
"I really appreciate it, Miles. We'll be there in about 5 minutes. Morgan, out," Max said and switched off the radio. Max punched the coordinates into the navigation system and leaned back. His arm started throbbing painfully. The harness was uncomfortable and he unbuckled it. After slouching in his seat, Max closed both his eyes and enjoyed the feeling of the speed as they cruised above the desert. "That was some superior flying back there, Corporal Anders."  
  
"Thank you, sir," Anders said proudly.  
  
"You don't have to call me 'sir,' Anders," Max said, opening one eye and rolling it over to look at her. "I left the military a long time ago and left all that behind me." Anders nodded.  
  
"Why did you leave?" she asked after a long pause. Max found himself suddenly wanting a cigarette. He licked his lips only to find that his mouth had gone dry and he forced himself to salivate.  
  
"I left the military because I was tired of being used. You're a tool, Corporal. You let yourself be marginalized and you let yourself be used because someone with more brass on their lapel or a bigger patch on their shoulder says you have to," Max said, closing his eye again. "It's all bullshit, and it's all for nothing," he added with a sigh.  
  
"Hey! I am proud to be here! Nothing pleases me more than to serve my government!" she said loudly. Max could hear her shift in her seat to face him, but he kept his eyes closed and took a deep breath.  
  
"I'm proud of the ends, but not the means of my missions," Max said plainly. He was starting to fall asleep again. "Achieving the goals that we did violated almost everything that I hold sacred and made me a worse human being."  
  
"But your missions," Anders started. She paused for a second. "Because of you, the Syndicate didn't get itself established on Titan. Because of you the Syndicate wasn't able to reform at any where near its former power."  
  
"Because of me, we might have just started a war with part of Earth. Because of me, we don't have one major Syndicate to take care of; we have three," Max said softly. "Because of me," he started again and stopped. "Because of you," his voice said inside his head, "your family and everyone you cared about is dead." Max sighed deeply and shut his eyes tighter. "Because of me, people have died. Lots of people died, as a matter of fact, and not all of them were bad."  
  
"But. . ." began Anders. Max's eyes flashed open and he turned his head.  
  
"But what! I bled and fought and nearly died for my government so many times that I can't remember them all anymore, and after all of that, what did I get? A pat on the head and I was told that nothing I would ever do from that point forward would ever be official again! Not even my death! My government disavowed my existence and used me as a tool to get its own schemes going and to keep them going. And let me tell you something, missy; if you think you're any different than me, you're dead wrong. You're a fucking tool. All you are is another cog in the machine. Your government didn't care about you so much that they sent me to come get you and it's been a trap every step of the way. As a matter of fact, the only reason I have to trust that you are who I was told you are is because you didn't kill me when I was passed out," Max said, his face a mask of fury. Anders opened her mouth to say something and then shut it, turning her head slowly forward again, her eyes staring out the front of the pod. She looked like she was going to cry, but much to her merit, she didn't. Her lip quivered, but Max noticed not one single tear roll down her face. The two rode in silence the rest of the way to Doohan's place.  
  
Max noted that the old man had only added to the collection of junk in his yard. More vehicles had been added, a few old tanks, and even what looked like old missiles or old space boosters. He had added quite a collection of old mono-pods, and it looked like his new collection was sitting on about 10 acres of new land.  
  
"That's it. Land us by the small hanger with the rusting out doors," Max said quietly. They landed and Miles ran out to meet them. Max saw him as the dust settled, a handkerchief tied around his face to protect his nose and mouth from the dust and his Blue Sox cap was on backwards. He was also wearing a Blue Sox jersey, and Max couldn't tell if it was the same one from a few months ago when he was out here or if it was a new one. As always, he was wearing his cheap black-framed sunglasses.  
  
"Hey Miles, how's your 'Sox doing?" Max asked, stepping out of the Twilight. Miles' jaw was just about hanging on the ground. Anders killed the engines and got out. She cast cross, sideways glance at Max when she came around to the other side of the ship. She stood silently, her arms crossed tightly across her chest.  
  
"Well, you know us 'Sox fans," Max said, grinning sheepishly. His eyes kept running up and down the Twilight's hull. Max just imagined it wasn't just the lines on the ship that Miles was checking out, but those on the pilot as well.  
  
"Same as always then," Max laughed.  
  
"Yeah," Miles said breathlessly and ran his fingers along the hull. "So what do you want done with her? You know the old man is better with these mono-ships," Miles added and looked back at Max.  
  
"Yeah, I know," Max said and started to pat himself down looking for some cigarettes. Then he remembered; he left them back in the locker with his spare clips. "Hey Miles, you have a, wait, no you wouldn't. Damnit. Anyway, all we need is the transponder taken out and anything else that's giving off odd radio signals. Engine's fine, she runs like a champ. We could use some more ammunition though," Max continued. He climbed up on the Twilight and grabbed his flight suit. "We need this done like it was done yesterday, Miles," Max added. He looked over to Anders. She was still pissed off, her arms folded, her head down watching her boot toes move in the dirt.  
  
"Anders over there needs a shower, too. Got any hot water?" Max asked.  
  
"We're in the desert! All we have is hot water!" Miles said laughing. He walked around the Twilight to the pilot seat and got in. The two Marines walked off to the main hanger, with Anders following slowly behind Max. When they were clear, Doohan's assistant fired the engine of the Twilight and lifted her off the ground. Max turned around and watched Miles move her gently into the small hanger they had parked in front of. Max continued to the hanger with Anders and showed her where the bathroom was. He managed to track down a clean towel and gave that to her before she got in. Part of Max really wanted to sneak a peek, but another part didn't want to violate her like that.  
  
Max poured himself a cup of coffee and wandered out to the hanger. Miles had the Twilight hooked up to a diagnostic machine.  
  
"What's the verdict, doc?" Max asked and slowly sipped his coffee.  
  
"You have a military aircraft here that's not decommissioned. Again. Steal this one, too?" Miles asked as he read the diagnostics equipment.  
  
"Nope, not yet. Mission is still active," Max said smiling. Miles laughed. "Blue Sox aren't playing today?"  
  
"No, they lost the last game for the pennant. It was so close this time, too! If only they'd sent in the relief pitcher! Murphy's good, but he's getting old, he can't pitch for 9 innings straight!" Miles said emphatically. Max just shook his head and laughed slightly. "Well, I can tell you that you have an ELR transponder sending out a constant signal," Miles said, grunting as he crawled inside the Twilight. "You didn't really want that, did you Morgan?"  
  
"Nope, can't say that I do," Max said and swallowed the last drop of coffee. There was the sound of shorting out electronics and a crunching sound, followed by a power drill whirring to life and dying in a quick cycle. Max watched a handful of screws fly out the cabin of the Twilight and then Miles backing out with the Transponder in hand. He set it down on the bench and removed the power source, setting it aside. Max smiled and listened to its faint hum go down into nothing. "So they know it's here?"  
  
"Probably not. The sun let lose a huge solar flare a couple days ago and the magnetic storm hit Earth today at about noon and has been screwing with communications all day. There was even talk of shutting down the gate because of some concern, but the gate company said there was enough shielding," Miles said, shrugging. "This baby was it though, no more signals coming from her," Max added, slapping his hand down on the transponder.  
  
"Ammo and gas?" Max asked, leaning against the starboard side Vulcan cannon.  
  
"Yeah, yeah," Miles said smiling and unlocked the ammunition magazines. He gave a low whistle. "40mm penetrators! The old man's gonna hate me if I don't charge you for these things. You ever see what happens to a ship when they get shot with these?" he asked excitedly. Max's mind immediately went back to the Syndicate ship he saw a couple weeks ago. That thing had been shredded by 40mm penetrators, and Max suddenly had a very bad feeling that gave him a very unhappy outlook on the future.  
  
"Miles, was this transponder sending out a coded frequency?" Max asked cautiously. Miles shrugged and plugged the power source back into it. The transponder powered back up and Miles went to the diagnostic equipment and turned some knobs and flipped some toggle switches. The diagnostic computer started to beep slowly but rhythmically. Max's eyes got wide. "Shut it off!"  
  
Miles jumped to it and pulled the power source. The slow beep died faster than the transponder's gentle hum.  
  
"Communication wasn't cut off on the planet, was it. Just off planet."  
  
"Right," Miles said. "The atmosphere protected almost anything Earth based."  
  
"Miles, we have to get this thing out of here right now. Have anything disposable that can fly fast and far by itself?" Max said, grabbing the transponder and the power source.  
  
"Nothing that's cheap," Miles said and pointed to the main hanger. Max took off running for it and Miles followed suit.  
  
"Hook this thing up, and gas something up that'll make it into the gate. Whatever we use it needs to have an accident in hyperspace," Max said looking around the shop. There were half a dozen things that would probably work, it was just a question of what Doohan wouldn't steak Miles down in the middle of the desert for blowing up. Max saw an old police cruiser in the back. "What about that?" he asked pointing to it. Miles nodded and they ran over to it.  
  
"I'll plug in the transponder, you get this thing programmed," Miles said. They both crammed into the cruiser's mono-pod and Max powered it up and moved it out of the shop. He set it down again and Miles jumped out. "You're all set, Morgan!" he yelled and backed off toward the main hanger. Max punched in the coordinates for the gate and programmed it to have a thruster "malfunction" 15 minutes into hyper space and veer to port, effectively turning it into a quantum anomaly that would be traveling forever between hyperspace and normal space. When that was set, Max turned on the sirens and the flashers and jumped out, shutting the pod door on the way off the cruiser. He got himself clear of the craft as it thrusted up and out of the atmosphere. If it were night, Max would be able to see it almost the entire way to the gate. Both of them breathed a sigh of relief.  
  
"There's still a chance someone will come looking for me," Max said after a few seconds. Miles nodded and they walked back to the small hanger with the Twilight in it.  
  
"I'll be sure to tell Doohan," Miles said. "He might be getting old, but the old man can still throw someone a beating like you wouldn't believe." They both laughed about the thought of watching the old Irishman working over a couple of Syndicate members. Max was somehow certain that his vision wasn't too far from the truth of the matter, if it ever came down to it. For being almost 70, Doohan was one of the toughest men that Max had the pleasure of knowing.  
  
After reloading the magazines on the Twilight and refueling her tank, the two men walked back to the main hanger where they found Anders asleep on the couch outside of Doohan's office. Max took a second to look at the image of beauty before him.  
  
The Corporal's tall, lean Martian body was draped gracefully over the couch, her head snuggled against one arm rest, one foot resting on top of the other arm rest, one foot tucked between her and the back of the couch. Her face was cradled in her arms, her medium length light brown hair was draped over her arms, but her small ear was sticking through the curtain of silk She hadn't put her clothes back on, but instead she had found Max's flight suit and put it on. Max, in all his life, had never seen a flight suit look so good. Her body wasn't exactly hour glass, but she had shapely hips, a small and trim waist and then her body flowed up to her bosom. It seemed that her legs stopped at about her neck. Max was staring for he didn't know how long. He was brought out of it by Miles pushing him a little; Max was so taken in by Anders' body that he had to catch himself from falling over. Max stood straight back up with a sheepish grin on his face. He was sure he was blushing slightly. Miles just laughed softly and they walked quietly back into the office.  
  
"Now, for the cost of the cruiser, I'm gonna need 10. Ammunition for that thing isn't easy to come by and she needed a pretty good amount of fuel, so we'll charge you 1 for that. 11 mil is your total today, kind sir," Miles said softly. Max nodded and they set up the transaction. It was processed within seconds and both men shook hands.  
  
"A pleasure as always," Max said smiling. Miles smiled back. "We gotta get going," Max added. They walked out of the door and Max stood several feet from the couch. Miles walked out of the hanger. "Corporal Anders," Max said clearly. Anders snapped to attention and was almost standing before she knew what was going on. Her brain caught up with her body and she looked at Max.  
  
"Morgan," she said, the word rolling out of her mouth like poison.  
  
"We need to be somewhere else," Max said and started walking out the door. Anders caught up to him and they headed to the small hanger.  
  
"I don't care where you're going, I just want to go home," she said, the spite still thick in her voice. Max stopped in his tracks and looked that the Twilight gleaming under the lights of the hanger. A smile crossed his lips and his eyes clouded over in nostalgia.  
  
"Home," he said softly and the two of them walked to Max's ship. 


	5. Session 5 Cowboy Canticle

--Hey there, it's your friendly author again. I'd just like to take the time and opportunity to thank Salor Solara for some of the advice on the religious aspects of this story, particularly in some of the Bible verses and many, many hours of late night conversations of religion. --Gryphyn  
  
Session #5 Cowboy Canticle  
  
Max sat alone in the darkness. The only light coming into the tiny room was dimmed by cloth over a finely cut panel; the odd mixture casting eerie shadows on Max's face. Max heard a noise next to the small room he was in and a small panel next to his head slid open, revealing a working of cloth and wood similar to the one letting light into the booth. Someone on the other side of the panel cleared their throat, and it was a deep sound, Max guessed that the person next to him was a man.  
  
"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned," Max said lowly. He paused briefly before continuing. He hadn't been in a confessional since before he had been in the service, when he was still living on Io. That has been right after Max's 18th birthday, and right before he was going to propose to Cindy. He had wanted to go into that after being forgiven for his sins, but not before. "It's been 8 years since my last confession."  
  
"Tell me of your sins, my son," the priest said. There was an air of both compassion and boredom in his voice. The combination struck Max as odd, but extremely understandable. The priest was probably used to hearing all kinds of lame sins, and he went home thinking that people aren't really all that bad; petty larceny at best in a community like this. Today, he would go home with a different feeling in his heart. Max almost smiled and thought "Let's test that faith, Father."  
  
"I have sinned, and I have broken the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth, ninth, and tenth commandments, Father. I have sinned against God in thought, word, and deed," Max said, his brow knitting as he recalled exactly what he had done in the name of the Marines.  
  
The priest in the other booth coughed slightly. Max could hear him shift in his seat as he cleared his throat. "How have you done this, my son?" the priest asked, his voice cracking sharply.  
  
"I have taken the Lord's name in vain on countless occasions and I felt it in my heart on many of those occasions. I have not observed the Sabbath in over 5 years, and on some I was acting in a less than pious manner. I dishonored my parents by specifically disrespecting their wishes for my future and by refusing to speak with them on the subject. I have killed countless hundreds of men, and through my action and inaction I have caused the death of still more men, women, and children. I have stolen property from individuals, many of whom were unaware of the theft; some tried to recover their property only to meet death at my hands. I have lied and cheated in order to protect my own self-interests. I have coveted property on many occasions, and often blatantly, with no intention of returning it, and I have often destroyed the items I've coveted so the owner can never get them back," Max said slowly. As he spoke, memories flooded into his mind, and most prominent of those memories was his first mission.  
  
Max and his squad had been sent to Titan to clean up the remaining pockets of dissidents left after the war. There were still small pockets of soldiers fighting each other, regardless of the fact that their main forces had pulled off the planet. Some of these groups were separated from their armies and didn't know the war was over, others knew only fighting and the prospect of peace scared them. Others enjoyed the blood shed and the carnage and were busily trying to declare their own governments. The main reason that Max and his squad had been sent was to take care of a small group of Syndicate members that had been recruiting some of the marooned soldiers. The main objective of their strike was a particularly violent new Syndicate recruit with the appropriate name of Vicious.  
  
Vicious and a few of his freshly found soldiers were held up in an old military compound. Max's team's orders were to go in and remove them. The mission had been planned for only a few short days, and it was known that Vicious and all of his closest circle would be at the compound. When Max and his team arrived, they launched mortars into the compound from all angles and each of them slipped inside. In the confusion, it was pretty easy to do; the Syndicate's newest soldiers were busy trying to look for the invading force while the Special Forces team slipped through the shadows. Max was supposed to get into the main compound, and he did that extremely quietly. His mind hazed and he couldn't recall all of what happened, but he knew that by the time he got to his objective he had been wounded.  
  
The main barracks area had an office suite; the planning room, the communications center, and the administrative office were all the areas where Vicious was supposed to be. Max forced his way inside the barracks and dealt with the Syndicate members in there. Four hand grenades took care of most of the opposition, and what was left was easy to pick off. Max charged into the office, not fully knowing what to expect, but it certainly wasn't what he saw. The administrative office was virtually empty. A file drawer hung half open, its contents had been pulled in a hurry, judging from the papers scattered on the floor. The other files had been pulled similarly, and even the desk chair was missing from the room. The desk, however, was there and on it was a computer with a camera set up beside it. On the screen was a smiling, wicked looking man with white hair. Max recognized him immediately as Vicious.  
  
"You were wrong to come, Lieutenant. But instead of killing you, I think you should have to watch the rest of your squad die," Vicious said in his raspy voice. A fan of red hit the camera and it panned down to show Max the headless body of one of his troops. He thought it was Collin, but he wasn't sure until he saw the head roll into the camera, Collin's eyes looking up vacantly. One by one, the rest of Max's squad met with a similar fate, each of them silent in their death. Max watched on in anger, unable to turn away.  
  
"You just made a big mistake, Vicious. I'll find you," Morgan spat.  
  
Vicious just smiled widely and turned off the view screen. Morgan snapped back to reality and the sounding of the priest's voice.  
  
"You sound like a man with a heavy heart and a heavy conscious, my son. Did you commit these acts joyously?" the priest asked.  
  
"Some of them, yes Father. Most I did because of duty," Morgan said wearily.  
  
"Then you are a soldier?" the priest asked.  
  
"I was," Max said after a short pause. "I was a soldier for almost 6 years."  
  
"No longer?"  
  
"No, Father. No longer," Max said with a touch of remorse in his voice.  
  
"Why is that?" the priest asked. "Did you no longer feel your purpose in life was soldiering?"  
  
Max laughed a little. "No, Father, I think I will be a soldier for the rest of my days in some means or another. I was tired of being used as an instrument of unguided destruction. I felt as if my actions only incurred other further wrongs and injustices to be committed."  
  
"Mmmm," the priest said in consideration. "I believe that all soldiers think this at some point; many that I've spoken with have discussed a similar dilemma of their religious beliefs conflicting with their orders. On the one hand, they have to deal with the thought of living in shame and facing punishment from their superiors. On the other, they have to worry about how they are seen by the Eyes of God."  
  
Max's thoughts drifted to his family. He had brothers, a sister, and two loving parents back on Io. His girlfriend was there, and as soon as Max was done with the military, as soon as his 8-year tour in the Special Forces was up, he was going to go home and get married to that girl. Max still remembered her scent, the feel of her silken hair, the warmth of her breath, and the little flecks of silver in her eyes. The military helped in taking all that from Max as well.  
  
After the missing Vicious on Titan, it was discovered that there had been a Syndicate spy in the Marines. It made sense, and it was a constant risk, which is why only officers were given information, and usually only hours before a strike force was assembled and shipped out. This particular informant had told the Syndicate of the mission to Titian to try to eliminate Vicious. Among the information given was the name and rank of all the members of Max's team. It had all been a set up to try to turn Max against the Marines, and while he wasn't actively participating in the Syndicate, having an easily accessible family made him easy to control.  
  
First there were the threats; things like "we know who you are and further missions against us will become actionable." Max told his superiors and they said that they would not give in to terrorist threats from any organization. However, they did offer to move his family to the base on Mars. Max talked about it with his parents; they still were angry that he left, but understood the urgency of the situation at hand. Cynthia agreed at once and said she would help his parents out. Max's brothers and sister took the news about the same. The move was set up and they got loaded on to the transport.  
  
Unfortunately, the whole process involved Captain Tao who proved to be the Syndicate spy. Max received a letter, hand delivered by a Marine courier, that was from Vicious. He said that it would have been better if things had worked out differently, and that Max should have stayed locked in his cage. It wasn't two minutes later that Max's commanding officer, then Major Upton, came into Max's office. He said there was something of a mutiny on the military transport and it was apparent that they Syndicate was behind it. Max's entire family was killed in the incident and there was to be a full investigation. It wasn't long after the investigation began that they had traced the leak back to Captain Tao. He committed suicide over the matter, and in a way, a very large part of Max did too.  
  
After that, Max was the soulless killing machine that the military had trained him to be. His reputation in the Corp soared, even for a person that was, after a few years, not even officially recognized by the Martian government. His almost legendary exploits were carried out with an efficient lethality that most war heroes dare not dream of. As the Syndicate closed in on the Martian government, the Martian Special Forces closed in on the Syndicate. Their outposts on Earth were destroyed. Their power on Venus was disrupted and natural entropy of power took place there. It wasn't only that, but it was other missions, too. Defusing difficult situations was Max's specialty, and it wasn't because of his subtlety with his tongue; it was because he had nothing else to live for except for the Corps as far as he was concerned.  
  
"You left out when the soldier has to justify his actions to himself?" Max asked quietly. He wasn't aware of how much time he had been sitting in silence, the thoughts flashing through his head. His internal clock wanted to say it had only been a few seconds. His mind wanted to tell him an eternity had been spent.  
  
"Ethical dilemmas stem from both obligation to duty and reverence for God. All ethics ultimately come from religion for either their justification or their enforcement. Even heeding the authority of a single person or a group of people can be traced in its roots back to the very fundamentals of religion, so in truth, all things concerning a hierarchy are religious in nature," the priest said.  
  
Max understood this extremely well. Power was only gained through control, fear, and the person being controlled allowing for that power to be lorded over them. Religion was fundamentally no different; it was a simple choice of following and believing, or not following at all and having no purpose in anything. Without God, all things are random chance and causality, but with God a plan can be seen, because an innate hierarchy is formed.  
  
"That would mean that God plans for us to fill certain rolls in life," Max said cautiously. "If all society is patterned through fear and acceptance of control and power, and all societies are based from psychology and philosophy, and all philosophy is grounded in religion and all psychology is grounded in man, then there is no escape from the hierarchy, because God is fundamental to it all," Max said and sighed deeply. "Which would mean," Max thought to himself, "that God wanted me to do those things, that God wanted for my family to die, because in the end, there is only God." Max couldn't remember a time when he felt more angry and lonely all at the same time than that one, empty moment.  
  
"God allows for opportunity to happen, and in that opportunity, we are given choice. Do we turn left, or do we turn right? God ultimately has a place for us, my son; and I'm not speaking of the end where he accepts us to him in Heaven. Each of us has a place that we must get to, and sometimes the road is trying. Sometimes the road is wracked with dilemma and conflict. Some give themselves to God and deny all temptation. Some try to live life as best they can and help others become better people. Others simply live life, only to rectify the wrongs they have done later, but all three types of people have one thing in common. That thing is reverence and respect for God and acceptance that they are not perfect, that they have made mistakes, and through God they can have those mistakes forgiven, but still have learned the lessons that those mistakes taught them," the priest said. Max noted that the boredom was gone from his voice, and it was being rapidly replaced by an excitement that a person feels when doing what is right for them.  
  
"What of those who don't forgive themselves?" Max asked, his voice sounding very small to his ears. "What about those who can't?" he asked even quieter.  
  
"God will forgive you is you ask, my son. His love for you is unconditional, but you must want it in your heart for it to exist in your heart. As for you forgiving yourself, only time will allow for that to happen. As you said, God is the fundamental for all things. You sound as if you suffer from a broken heart of sorts, as if you have fallen out of favor with yourself. God allows the healing of your heart to take place, but you must chose to let it be healed; not even God can force that on you. What we do in life is all we have of ourselves, and we have to live with our actions. It takes a strong person to make it through all that you have said that you have done. It takes a stronger person still to accept the wrongness of their actions and to want God back into our lives."  
  
"How can I even consider that after everything I've done in service of my government? I knew the things I was doing were wrong, but I did them anyway; and I even enjoyed them. How does that wound heal, Father?"  
  
"A man with a conscious as far-reaching and as memorable as yours can take a life time to answer that question alone. The only thing I can suggest is a passage from Timothy, chapter 1: 'Be not ashamed therefore of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but suffer hardship with the gospel according to the power of God; who saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before times eternal, but hath now been manifested by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, whereunto I was appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher.' A soldier with a heart as wounded as yours must have done a great many things that he considered wrong. However, if you were truant in your duties, as I am presuming you were, you fulfilled the role that God appointed you to. How can an appointment be a sin if it is God who appointed you?"  
  
Max sighed deeply and he thought of his life after blasting his way out of the military base in Alva City with the Mako. He vividly remembered the tracers cutting through the air like stars rising up into the heavens. The explosions of the missiles around his rapidly degrading ship started falling off as Max out maneuvered and eventually out ran his pursuers. He knew then, or at least he thought he knew, that they would be there directly, and he thought long and hard about turning himself in. For the first time in 6 years he had been truly free. There was no morning drill, there was no paperwork, no desk, and no covert operations. There was only Max.  
  
It hadn't stayed like that for long. It wasn't too long after that had happened that Max had been picked up by Robinson. Robinson was going to turn Max in for the little bounty that the Martian government had placed on him; standard procedure for soldiers who go AWOL and steal government equipment in the process, especially a 5 million Woolong ship. Max convinced Robinson to hire him, though; Max could be a bounty hunter for Robinson and Robinson could turn in the bounties. It kept Max in money, repaired, and out of jail, and it kept Robinson armed and gave him extra money when he needed it; which was pretty much all the time.  
  
"Maybe the sin isn't the appointment, but the path we take in getting there," Max said silently. He knew what the priest was going to say before he said it.  
  
"Then once again, offer your sin and yourself to God and he shall cast your sin away and take you into Him."  
  
Max nodded. He had been taking steps. Up until a week ago, he had been very careful to avoid killing anyone. There had been enough lives taken by his hands to satiate an entire brigade's blood lust. It had all been working so well, too. Up until Captain Gillian Vallemara of the Consortium. She was known for her ruthlessness and had caught Max three times now, and he had escaped all three times. She had a habit of turning his non-lethal beatings into blood baths, killing her wounded men or forcing Max into a situation that put it down to three or four of her officers dying, or Max letting himself get killed.  
  
Then there was the business he took care of trying to get the military to clear his name he tried in the beginning to not kill the guards, he really did. The first two, they should have made it, if the explosions and the fire didn't kill him. The next guard probably died, and from there on, every single guard he saw in the place lost his life at the hands of Max. There was no mercy, no quarter, not even any concern for their safety. It was all too easy for Max to do it, too; to just slip back into the mode where there are not people, to where everything is simply a target, an objective, or a non-combatant. How many men died in that building? 10? 50? Did it even matter after the first?  
  
The simple matter is no. One wrongful, intentional death is just as bad as 1000, the only difference is how history sees you. The difference between hero and murderer lies in the body count. If a man fights bravely for his home and kills an intruder, he goes to prison. If a man fights bravely and kills 100 men because they wear different colors than he does, he's given a medal and a seat of honor in a parade.  
  
Then there was the stealing, the cheating, and the lying. These were all bad of course, but they could be made up for. Stolen objects can be returned, cheats can be uncheated, lies can be retracted and apologized for. Extermination of another life is permanent. That person is dead. All those that the person knew are diminished in some way and that person will never get to know many of lives great joys and triumphs. The rest of it seemed almost petty to Max. So what, so he coveted the Mako. The Martian Marine Corp got her back, and in markedly better condition than what she left in.  
  
"Why would God put appoint someone to a position that they question for the rest of their lives?" Max asked, some strength returning to his voice.  
  
"God only chooses the appointment. Sometimes the chosen is unable to cope with the appointment, but all are worthy, otherwise God wouldn't have put them there." Max sighed deeply and the priest continued after a short pause. "In the Bible, and throughout nearly all of Christian literature, the faithful are referred to as 'the flock' and either God or Jesus are referred to as 'shepherds.' I have never like this description, do you know why?"  
  
"No father," Max said softly.  
  
"Because sheep are stupid. They are some of the most ignorant, arrogant, and herd-dependent animals that God has gifted us with," the priest said. Max laughed a little. "Did you know that when trying to wrangle and move sheep, they will sometimes get themselves stuck in the barbed wire fences instead of going to shelter or food? Sometimes you can hit them in the head with a board and they'll just keep on walking straight and unfazed as the day is long. I don't like to think of people like that. I prefer to think of them as people, living quietly in their mud huts and tiny brick houses. Some people have been chosen by the community to do certain things; collect taxes, administer the laws, and keep the peace. Other people have been gifted with great skill in pottery, writing, carpentry, or metal working. Then there's the other class of people; the protectors. They keep every danger away from their people that they can. They fight off the lions and they keep the people of their village safe. Sometimes, my son, the protectors have to go far from home to protect your people, and sometimes that can have consequences."  
  
"I don't know what your past has led you to do to get where you are," the priest continued, "but I do know that if God thought that you had done some great injustice or that you had chosen the incorrect path, you'd either be dead or someplace radically different from where you are now. The events of your past have made you the person you are and have given you the tools to be the person you will be. Some people are just people; they go to work, they do a job, and they go home. Some people are craftsmen and artisans. Some people are kings and queens or presidents. Others protect that way of life. The point is, my son, that you are fulfilling your role to the best of your ability as you're traveling in your path. When you get to your appointment, you will know it; life will just feel right some how. It's the blissful feeling of belonging somewhere."  
  
That thought hit Max like a truck. He never really felt that he "belonged" when he was in the Marines. He was beyond being a good Marine, and he had the silver, brass, and gold to prove it. But in all that time, he didn't make any friends. He had people that he trusted with his life, and in turn they trusted him with theirs, but you never got too close to people in the service; you never knew when you would be holding their body as they bled out into the mud. The only thing he came out of the service with was enemies. His stories never started with "I had a friend who." They were always beginning with "I knew this guy that." It was only until recently that he had actually made friends again, and for the first time in 8 years he felt like he was home.  
  
"I think I know what you're talking about," Max said in a heavy sigh. He considered a thousand memories flashing before his eyes about the last two years. Freedom, happiness, friendship, and belonging were constantly feelings he came up with when these pictures flashed through his mind. His family had become a rag-tag group that was half pirate and half mechanic. His home was where ever he was happy, and he was happy where he belonged. Max stood up in the confessional and went to open the door.  
  
"Have I helped you find the path again, my son?" asked the priest. Max smiled and opened the door. He walked out into the great cathedral, feeling small among the gothic pillars of black granite. The rest of the church was empty, save for a few pigeons that had gotten in through the bell tower. Light streamed down through the gray interior of the church through the colored windows, making ornate patterns on the floor and over the pews. The gold and ivory statuary in the massive hall of worship glistened with the pinks and reds and greens of the diffused light of the setting sun streaming through the stained glass. The sounds of Max's feet on the carpet as he walked out through the main doors of the church were muffled until he hit the marble flooring of the entry. He walked through the massive oak doors and out into the sunlight.  
  
The sounds of the world, kept out by the stone walls of the temple, returned to Max with the blinding light of the late-afternoon sun. After his eyes adjusted, he looked around and saw Anders sitting on the steps leading up into the cathedral, throwing handfuls of rice to the pigeons. Max chuckled a little and Anders turned to look at him, her hair fanning out for a second.  
  
"Ready to go?" she asked, still sitting.  
  
"Yeah, yeah I think I am." 


	6. Session 6 Venus Swing

*** So it's been a week since I've updated, sorry. I was busily reading all of "The Return" by the Smooster. He's a friend of mine and it's one hell of a fic. If you're into Dragon Ball or DBZ or even DBGT, I highly recommend the read.  
  
This is sort of a Christmas episode, and there won't be another one until after Christmas because I'm going home and taking some time off into the real world.  
  
Read, review, and rip it apart. Most importantly have a merry holiday whether you're Christian or pagan or whatever your religious or cultural affiliation may be.  
  
Gryphyn ***  
  
Session #6 Venus Swing  
  
The sequin studded crimson gown hugged the singer's curvy body. Max's well trained eyes could see that even before the spot light hit her. Her head was down and her hair draped over her face, falling in two thick curtains on either side of her face. The spot light irised open quickly on her and her head came up, her midnight blue hair fell into place like a silken drape. There wasn't a smile on her face, and her steel blue eyes were molten pools of lust chilled by contemptuous boredom and lit by a wondrous excitement.  
  
Her sultry voice started wafting out over the crowded room, mingling with the cigarette smoke in the unlit house seating. Max was trying to listen to her, but a crackle came over his ear bud and Anders' voice broke his concentration.  
  
"He's moving, Morgan. He's coming straight for you at your 4."  
  
Max listened carefully and he heard the man's boots sliding across the floor, trying to be quiet as he navigated the maze of tables and chairs and patrons that were concentrating on the soft lyrics of the crooning singer. Max heard him step up behind him and heard something being pulled out of a heavy leather coat pocket, the leather creaking softly.  
  
"You should probably sit down, and at least enjoy the show," Max said quietly, grabbing the pack of cigarettes from next to his half full glass of scotch and rocks. He put on in his mouth and then he felt the barrel of the gun press against his neck. 'Rounded slide and frame, heavy barrel, thick slide. Feels like an old 1911." Max thought and slowly grabbed the lighter from beside where his pack of cigarettes were sitting. "Only two cowboys I know use 1911's anymore," Max thought, striking the lighter. "And one of them." his thoughts continued and he inhaled the smoke deep into his lungs.  
  
"Hi there, Maxy," said a sultry female voice, the voice's lips tickling his ear right as the sound tantalized him to the core.  
  
"Isn't a boy," Max's thoughts finished. Max exhaled thickly, the cloud of his breath mingling with the haze of cigarette smoke already in the room. He pulled the cigarette from his mouth and set it in the ash tray, watching the thin trails of smoke twist and writhe as they became phantom wisps in the air.  
  
"Sit down Gillian, you're blocking the view of the people behind you," Max said softly. Gillian giggled and pulled the gun from Max's neck and set it on the table. She pulled the chair out and Max rose his hand. A waitress was over before Gillian had her jacket off.  
  
"Two scotches, one on the rocks, the other straight," Max whispered to the waitress. Max saw her nod out of the corner of his eye and then stop. He'd guessed her eyes hit the .45 sitting on the table. "Don't worry about that, there won't be trouble," Max said non-chalantly.  
  
"Morgan, what the hell is going on?" Anders said softly in his left, a high degree of concern in her voice. It almost sounded like she was trembling. Max had told Anders about Gillian Vallemara and that she was a person to be avoided at all costs. Now he had just welcomed her to sit down with him and she wasn't even the guy that was supposed to be after Max.  
  
"Anders, get back to Mars," Max said softly as he took a drink from his scotch. Gillian sat down. If she had heard Max speak, she didn't make any notice of it. Max noticed the leather long coat she was wearing had a hole in it and a dark stain on the inside liner. She sat down and snuggled into Max's arm, listening in silence for a second to the sultry tones of the singer.  
  
"Nice coat. I take it Sakura won't be needing it anymore?" Max asked. He brought his cigarette back to his mouth and inhaled slowly, savoring the taste of the smoke mingling with the taste of the scotch. Gillian giggled.  
  
"I don't know about a coat, but he could definitely use a sheet," she responded. Max couldn't say he was sad. Sakura had chased them to Venus from Earth and fully intended on cashing in on the bounty that was on both of them. Sakura was one of the worst to have hunting you down, too. He was trained by the Syndicate to track down their members who had felt they could simply leave. But even good hunters could be surprised, and if it was Gillian who killed him instead of finding him dead, Max couldn't help but feel a little twinge of pity for him. The waitress brought their drinks and quickly walked away.  
  
"So what are you going to do with me then? Simply march me out of here and down to the police?" Max asked after a moment of silence. He took the last pull of his cigarette and Gillian slowly reached up and grabbed her gun.  
  
"I would like to, but there's a special bonus on you now," Gillian said sitting up. The singer finished her set and most of the rest of the room clapped. Gillian took a drink of her scotch and drained most of it. Max like wise drank most of his fresh glass. "If I get you and your new little pet Marine, there's a 2 million dollar bonus offered on you."  
  
"So that's 15 million for me, 750 for the girl, and a 2 million bonus? That's pretty tidy," Max said and drank the rest of his scotch. Gillian giggled lightly.  
  
"That's what I was thinking. But I can't take you to the police for the bonus, Maxy. I have to take you back to Earth. Seems that the men you took your new little playmate from are very angry with you. Something about blowing up their head quarters and killing 30 of their men," Gillian said. Max turned to look at Gillian and he set his glass down beside it's empty partner. Gillian's eyes were twinkling in the dim lights "Here I thought you were against killing, Maxy. From the sounds of it, they didn't even stand a chance."  
  
"Unavoidable. They had guns and I was delivered into a trap," Max said softly.  
  
"Uh huh. From what I heard you walked right in and blew the place to hell. Sounds more like the old Major Morgan than this new little scrap of man I see before me. Like it hardly matters. We're gonna go get your new little friend and we're going back to Earth," Max nodded and pulled the last drag off his cigarette before putting it back in the ash tray to finish burning out. Gillian started to stand and Max stood up as well, scanning the room quickly. He seemed to quite accidentally knock over what was left of his scotch and then dump the ash tray over near it. The scotch quickly soaked into the floor and the fire lit the fumes.  
  
"Ready?" Max said smiling. He pulled his coat on and someone screamed behind him.  
  
"FIRE!" a waitress screamed and Max turned, looking at the floor. The flames were spreading quicker than he thought they should, but then this was a bar, and God only knew how much of what had been spilled and soaked into that carpet after all these years. The sprinklers kicked on and the place was in even more of a panic.  
  
Max stepped back closer to the table and a throng of people erupted around him, pushing Gillian out the door.  
  
"Morgan, damn you!" Gillian screamed above the din of the panicking patrons Max smiled back, and he knew he could see her as her head bobbed up and down in the crush of people heading for the door. Max waved and blew her a kiss before running for the back, jumping over a stretch of carpet that was engulfed in flames that were rapidly headed for the back of the little jazz dive.  
  
"Anders, I need you outside at the back of Sal's and I need you back there like you've been there the whole time," Max said calmly as he shouldered the back door open. He was extremely happy to be blinded by the landing lights of the Twilight and by the snow that her engines were kicking up as Anders hovered her a few feet off the ground. Max felt the cold rip through his snapping clothes, carried by the thrust of the Twilight's engines.  
  
"Never left," she said. Max saw the passenger door open and he didn't even break stride as he jumped up onto the Twilight's forward landing gear and hopped inside.  
  
"Well, Sakura's dead," Max said and fastened his harness.  
  
"Well that's good, I guess," Anders said and piloted the craft up into the dark Venus sky.  
  
"Yes, I suppose that it is," Max said, still feeling a pang of sorrow for the cowboy. He knew Gillian probably shot him in the knee from where the bullet hole in the jacket was. He could only imagine what she had done to him after that, but he's sure he didn't want to.  
  
"But?" Anders said after just a second's lull in the conversation. "There was a but there, even though you didn't say it," she added cutting of Max's inevitable question.  
  
"Gillian's here, and she said there's a bounty bonus on us if we're both brought back to Earth. That's bad," Max said and very badly wanted a cigarette.  
  
"Wait, you said 'us.' Morgan, is there a bounty out on me?" Anders asked, stopping the craft by one of the floating terraforming islands that were manufacturing a breathable atmosphere for the planet.  
  
"Yes, yes there is," Max said in a sigh.  
  
"But why, I haven't done anything! Just because my government tried to.oh I see," Anders said, her voice trailing off. There was a moment of silence. "How much?" she asked calmly and quietly.  
  
"750,000," Max said softly.  
  
"Oh. How much is this bonus?" she asked meekly. It almost looked to Max like she was shrinking into her seat.  
  
"2 Mil," Max said softly. There was another very pregnant pause and Max started staring out over the Sea of Athena, waiting for Anders to react.  
  
"How much are you up to?" she asked quietly. The ship's chronometer clicked by over 2 minutes before she had spoken.  
  
"15 Million if Gillian was right," Max said softly. His index and middle fingers started unconsciously tapping his knee quickly. He wanted a cigarette really badly now.  
  
It had been a week and a half since Max had broken her out of Rotterdam. They stopped in New York for a quick afternoon to get a few supplies and to let Max go to church. They hadn't heard any news and they were running low on ideas. The Consortium knew they were on Earth and the military would be watching the gates back to Mars. Consequently, the only place they could go this time of the cycle was Venus, and it wasn't much better than their other choices. But, the Consortium wasn't already there and the Martian Military would be looking for them, but it wouldn't be a full scale operation. Mars and Venus didn't always see eye to eye, and landing teams on each other's soil had always been a sticking point between the two governments.  
  
Max was broken out of his thoughts by Anders chuckling softly. His head whipped around and he looked at her, with a confused look on her face. She was looking at him and there was a twinkle in her eye and a little smirk on her face.  
  
"Looks like I have a ways to go if I want to catch you, Major," she said playfully and gently pushed the Twilight into movement again. Max half smiled at her and shook his head. For the first time in a week and a half, Max turned the viewer on and switched it to Channel 237.  
  
The screen came on and that horridly cheesy western music started playing.  
  
"AMIGO!" said the black man in the cowboy get up. Max felt like less of a bounty hunter and more of a clown every time he watched these two. "How y'all doin'!?" His voice came on loudly over the speakers.  
  
"God I hate those two," Max breathed quietly.  
  
"We have a special treat for you today, and we have a show jam packed with bounties for you!" the Dizzy blonde said, her shirt almost flopping all the way open. She made a gun with her fingers and pointed it at the screen. "PaChoo! PaChoo!" she said and cocked her hand back after firing each imaginary shot. The screen switched to the "Today's Menu" screen and it quickly dissolved into a side-by-side of Anders and Morgan, both wearing their dress blacks from the Marines.  
  
"Maxwell Morgan is still at large and was last seen around Earth! He's worth an amazing 15 Million Woolongs since we last had him on the show and he's been a very naughty boy since then, too. His new accomplice is Erin Anders, another Marine from Mars! These two blasted their way out of a government building on Earth. IF you catch both of them together and get them back, the government in Rotterdam will pay out a 2 Million Woolong bonus!" the man said again and the words "Bonus Pay!" flashed on the screen a few times before the screen dissolved to the faces of 3 men.  
  
"These 3 desperados are the Colton Clan from Mars!" the man started out. Max perked an eyebrow and Anders stopped the ship. "They are wanted for bio-terrorism and were broken out of custody before their trial! They were last seen in the area of Earth, but have not been spotted for some time. They are each worth 1 and a half million, but if they are brought in all at the same time, Double Bonus!" the man shouted, staring into the camera waving little victory signs around as "Double Bonus!!" flashed up on the screen.  
  
"Oh shit," Max said. He switched the screen off.  
  
"What? I know I've heard of them before, but I can't remember anything about them," Anders said and kicked the Twilight into motion again.  
  
"Remember all that heat that Cheerios Medical got into about a year and a half back?" Max asked, his face slack and the color drained from it slightly.  
  
"Yeah," Anders responded.  
  
"The Ray Colton was one of their chief scientists in bio weapons. He'd take toxins and allergens found in nature and amplify them, purifying them and making them thousands of times worse than what the substance alone was capable of," Max said plainly and started looking out the window. It looked like it was snowing, but it was almost always too warm on Venus for that except at the high altitudes The plants used for the terraforming were dropping their cottony seed pods and their flowers were blooming and bursting with pollen. It would have been a beautiful sight for Max, especially since he hadn't seen snow since being on Titan, but now it just filled him full of dread.  
  
"I still don't get what the big deal is, Morgan."  
  
"See all this fluffy crap that we're flying through? Those are the seed pods of the plants in the terraforming platforms. That means the plants are starting to pollinate again," Morgan said.  
  
"I thought plants dropped seed only after they had been pollinated," Anders said, a little confused.  
  
"Not these. These plants had some sort of weird-cross pollination mechanism built into them. Some of the plants are male and some are female. What happens is the seeds are dropped and a day or so after they start dropping, the air floods with pollen from the male plants. That's what causes Venus Sickness, all the damn pollen," Max said patiently. "And if Colton and his brothers are here." Max let his voice trail off.  
  
"Then they could be messing around with the Venus Sickness and making it worse," mumbled Anders. She brought the Twilight around in a graceful arc. "But wait, they're still on Earth!"  
  
"So are we," Max reminded. Anders grunted softly; she almost growled. "So basically, we just sit around and wait for something to happen. They're not really terrorists, they're mercenaries. If they were gonna do something like what we're thinking, there'd be a statement made. There would be a demand and a timeframe."  
  
"How would we know about it?" Anders asked as Max watched the twinkling lights in the distance draw closer as they neared the city.  
  
"Well, they'd put it on the." Max said, cutting himself off and switching the TV back on. Big Shot was just ending and the news was starting. The view of a news anchor at his desk appeared and the channel 237 logo splashed on and then disappeared into the upper right hand corner of the screen, just over the reporter's shoulder. The reporter was an older man, fairly pale, with white hair that was combed neatly to the sides and a thick beard that had some gray in it still. He wore what looked like steel rimmed glasses and he picked up the news sheets and looked at the camera.  
  
"Good evening, I'm Donner Blitzer, and this," he started and then held for a dramatic pause, "is the news. Tonight's top story come from the Venusians capitol city of Mithridates. A fire broke out in Sal's, a club on the lower east side of town that's famous for it's performances of early 20th century jazz, blues, and big band music. Though the cause of the fire was determined to be accidental and no one was hurt, the building and half the adjacent block were razed before the fire department could respond. We now go live to our correspondent, Betty Koric. Betty?" An over head image of the block that Sal's sat on was shown in the window over the correspondent's shoulder. Betty was standing there and on cue the image switched to the main image and she walked through the devastation and the maze of rescue equipment.  
  
"Thanks Don. What you see behind and around me is what remains of the historic lower east side of Mithridates. The city itself started out from humble beginnings, despite its regal name, and this area was the first to be built as soon as the terraforming project had enough of a stable atmosphere to breathe outside the first bases on Venus."  
  
"I should have known you started that fire," grumbled Anders.  
  
"Got out, didn't I?" Max shot back and Betty started to talk again.  
  
"The start of the fire is not known, and Sal's had no surveillance system, though at least one witness said that this was the work of the fugitive Maxwell Morgan. The witness refused to be interviewed on camera and took off after giving a hasty statement to police," Betty said  
  
"Betty, did any of the other witnesses place this Maxwell Morgan at the scene?" Donner interrupted from the studio.  
  
"Don, there are conflicting reports of the presence of Mr. Morgan. However, the club owner and the wait staff all firmly deny that Mr. Morgan was present. A few of the patrons have said that they saw him there, but due to their degree of drunkenness, it is doubtful that the police will follow up on that lead. Instead the police are now looking for this woman," Betty responded and flashed a picture of a very angry red head in a long leather jacket. She had a black eye and soot on her face; her mascara was also less than perfect and her lipstick was smeared slightly. Max recognized her immediately as Gillian.  
  
"The police say that this is the first and only eye-witness to come forward and say that Maxwell Morgan was present, the other reports coming through only after questioning. This woman, however, had no Identicard on her and submitted a false name to police. If anyone has any knowledge of this woman's identity or whereabouts, the police would like you to call them at the number listed at the bottom of the screen," she said as the number for the Mithridates Police Department flashed up on the screen. "The woman is wanted in conjunction with questioning in the matter of this suspected arson. Anyone who gives information leading to her arrest and conviction will receive an award of 25,000 Woolongs. Don?" Betty finished. The scene moved back to the small display over Donner Blitzer's left shoulder and the studio was once again in the picture.  
  
"Ha! Take that, bitch!" Max shouted. He'd have jumped in his seat if he weren't strapped in it. Anders laughed a little.  
  
Donner started blabbering on about some cookie drive for the Venusians Bear Scouts or something to that extent; Max wasn't really paying attention. Then he heard gun fire in the back ground and the muffled shout of "Nobody Move!"  
  
"Here we go, Anders, get to the Channel 237 tower," Anders kicked the Twilight into high gear and she arched across the night skyline of Mithridates. The channel 237 tower wasn't hard to find; it was one of the taller buildings in the city and it had a big 237 in red on all four sides of it.  
  
A big man wearing a suit and a mouse mask forced his way onto the set and pushed Donner Blitzer out of the way.  
  
"Citizens of Venus. You are my prisoners. Any ship leaving will be shot down, any ship coming will be intercepted and turned away or blow up; any military craft leaving their bases will be destroyed by our warships. Any attempt to siege this building will be a useless gesture. It is now controlled by the Consortium," the man said boldly and clearly.  
  
Max laughed inwardly and a smirk appeared on his face. "Time to raise that bounty," he thought and unbuckled his harness. He fished his gun out from under the seat as well as 3 extra clips of ammunition. He continued to listen to the man on the news station, however, to see what was even going on.  
  
"We have placed in strategic terraforming stations several devices which enhance the transmission of the Venus Sickness. This new amplified version will be enough to infect every man woman and child on Venus; except those who have been vaccinated against it, that is. In order to destroy the devices the government would have to blow up each terraforming station, just to be sure that none of our devices were missed. Doing so, however, would doom all of the citizens to slow asphyxiation."  
  
"Our demands are simple. We want control over Mithridates, New Paris, and New Troy. We also want transferred into a new account one half of the Gross Planetary Product of Venus. If this demand is not met, all of the citizens on Venus will die and we will just take what we want anyway. You have 8 hours to meet these demands without question before 2 billion lives are changed forever," the Consortium man said. At the end of speaking he raised his gun and fired a shot into the camera. The screen went blank for a second and then the multi-barred, multi-colored test pattern popped up accompanied by a quiet, but slightly high pitched whine.  
  
"Anders, get me on that roof. If you see anything start exploding, get the hell out of here," Morgan said and checked the straps on his boot plates. Anders hovered the Twilight a few inches off the surface of the roof and Max got ready to jump out. He turned to Anders quickly and looked into her eyes. "If I don't make it out of this, you have to get back to Robinson's and tell him what's going on. If they get Venus, he's not safe," Morgan said and got ready to jump out.  
  
"Be careful," Anders said softly. Max didn't hear her. He hit the roof and his mind went into the logistical-killing mode that he had tried so hard to just drop. He knew he needed it now, and that he would continue to need it in the future. He shot the lock out of the roof access door and kicked it in. As he stepped in out of the cold and wind, he heard a familiar voice in his head: "I prefer to think of them as people, living quietly in their mud huts and tiny brick houses. Some people have been chosen by the community to do certain things; collect taxes, administer the laws, and keep the peace. Other people have been gifted with great skill in pottery, writing, carpentry, or metal working. Then there's the other class of people; the protectors. They keep every danger away from their people that they can. They fight off the lions and they keep the people of their village safe. Sometimes, my son, the protectors have to go far from home to protect your people, and sometimes that can have consequences."  
  
"Should have held off on that confession," Max said half under his breath. He charged down the stairs to the landing between flights. "I'm just gonna have to go right back," he added with a smile. Max looked and moved, his gun out in front of him covering all of the paths of attack in front of him. His aim shifted quickly, his eyes absorbing everything that there was to see in the white staircase. Max continued moving down after seeing a little placard labeled "Transmitter Control Room." His feet kept carrying him down, his eyes kept searching for traps and Consortium goons while his gun was held straight out in front of him and it was stable as a rock. It was another 5 floors down before Max saw anyone. He caught a glimpse of a man running up the stairs, his gun waving in one arm as he pumped up the stairs. Max ducked back against the flight that he was on and waited.  
  
The goon's head just appeared over the stairs that Max was laying on and Max hesitated for only a moment and fired a blast point-blank into his shoulder. The force of the blow knocked him into the wall and he slumped, sliding down the stairs he had been running up. The cement stairwell amplified the shot and Max's ears were ringing. He quickly got the guard's gun and patted him down for anything else useful. He found a key ring and a pack of cigarettes. Max took both. A few floors below, Max heard the sound of a door slamming and then shouting. He couldn't make out much of it because of the blaring in his ear from the gunshot. Max checked the gun over and sighed deeply to himself. "Why do they all have to use HK's?" Max thought quietly. He felt the staircase move with the charging of the Consortium men before he heard them.  
  
Max picked up the body of the dead guard and threw him down to the next landing with a thump. The men below raced up faster and saw their friend. Max still couldn't hear much, but he saw that they both stopped to check out their fellow guard. Max whistled loudly and they both turned. Max was pretty sure the last thing they ever saw was a man wearing black cargo pants in a white t-shirt with a leather coat over the top of that, blasting away with an HK. He patted them down in the same manner and collected another handgun and two clips of ammunition for the HK. He also found some pocket change and two more key rings with virtually identical keys on each of them. Max checked it against the set he already had and they were the same.  
  
Max's hearing was now almost completely gone, his ears feeling warm, a constant buzzing noise was all he got out of his right one and his left felt as if it were being used as a punching bag by his pulse. He knew the feeling would pass, and soon, but he also knew that his hearing could be irrevocably damaged if he kept firing. He slung his new HK and crept down the stairs. The guards didn't' run very far before they came to their ends, and Max kept his eyes on the signs by the doors on each floor. Floor 103 was labeled "News Floor" and Max figured it would be about right for where the last two should have come from. Max noted with some delight that the door opened into the floor instead of the stairwell. He walked up to the side of the door and knocked, his back against the concrete wall. There was a few seconds pause and a hail of gunfire tore through the door, obviously meant to cut whoever was on the other side in half. Most of the bullets embedded into the blocks on the far wall of the stair well, a few hit the steel handrail and ricocheted up where Max had just come from.  
  
After another few seconds, the door opened cautiously. Max looked down and didn't see a gun barrel. He whipped around quickly and delivered a high kick to the door, slamming it open while he spun clear. Another torrent of gunfire erupted and Max backed down the switch back of the stairs, using them for as much cover as he could. He could hear a lot of shouting coming from the room, but only from his left ear. Max propped the HK up on the stairs just in time to have someone poke their head through it.  
  
"Here kitty kitty," Max said quietly. The man's head whipped around and Morgan opened fire, filling the man with 5 ounces of lead. He slumped down in the door way and Max saw a hand grab the shoulder of the dead man's jacket. Max put a shot into it from his gun and it exploded in a flash of red. The bullet went clean through the hand and slammed into the shoulder of the man he had just killed. He slumped to his side and now had the door completely blocked.  
  
Max took the time to feel his right ear. It wasn't bleeding, so he probably hadn't seriously injured it, He didn't understand why his left ear was still working until his hand hit a small chunk of cold metal in it. He was still wearing his ear piece.  
  
"Anders, got a copy?" Max said just loud enough for her to hear. There was a response, but between the concrete and the steel in the staircase he was in, nothing came through but a small burst of static. "Damnit," Max swore and side-stepped up the stairs, keeping the door covered. He let loose a burst of fire from his HK, letting it ricocheted into the doorway, hopefully discouraging them from trying to step through. Max heard someone swearing on the other side of the door and then some one yelling "Blow it!" Max saw something round and matte black loft through the air into the stair case. Max recognized it at once as a shrapnel grenade and he raced up to it.  
  
The grenade bounced off the hand rail and angled down to him. Max jumped up the last four steps and dove across the landing by the door, throwing the grenade into the room beyond. All he saw was the surprised look on the mans face who threw the grenade, the pin's ring still around his right finger. Max still hadn't slid all the way to the wall and the grenade went off. Most of the shrapnel stayed inside the room beyond the stairs Some of it came through into the stairwell though, and Max felt a few pieces tear into his right arm which was luckily covering his face. He tried to make a fist only to be met with bolts of pain shooting through his arm, lighting his nervous system up like he just grabbed onto high voltage and was lit on fire.  
  
Max got himself to his feet and cradled his arm to his body to keep it from hurting more than it did. He was losing a lot of blood, but not nearly as bad as he had been on his last few missions. Still, the faster he could get out of here, the faster he could get patched up. He charged into the room, his machine gun pointing directly at the man behind the news desk in the mouse mask. The other men in the room with guns, kept them trained on Max, but they did not shoot.  
  
"Anybody even twitches, and Mickey gets a new hole to breathe with. Drop your guns," Max said. HK's clattered to the floor. Max walked up to the news desk, kicking some of the machine guns out of the way as he moved, piling them up in front of the desk. All the while he kept his aim steadily on the masked man at the desk. It was only then that he took a quick survey of the room.  
  
The man that was by the door when Max threw the grenade was dead. Little bits and pieces of him were dripping off the walls and some of the scaffolding. There was a glassed in loft on this floor and most of the windows by the door had been shattered and most of those had big pieces of glass that had fallen in, leaving gaping holes in about a quarter of the black glass façade. There were 12 men that had had machineguns in the room, all of them wearing charcoal gray suits, white shirts, and ties. All of them were wearing dress shoes. They were just regular Consortium goons, nothing more. Some of the actual television crew were hiding in the rigging under the stage, all of them had their hands up and they had been covered by a couple of the goons before they dropped their weapons. The desk he was behind was heavy steel, probably a good quarter inch thick. Standard ammunition wouldn't penetrate it. The man behind the desk was wearing a black jacket and Max noted that his hands were quivering in the air. "That's not good," Max thought.  
  
Max reached the desk and got behind the masked man in the black jacket. He pulled the mask off, covering the goons as best he could. The man sitting down had white hair and was balding in the back. It was not Ray Colton. It was Donner Blitzer.  
  
"I'd get under the desk, if I were you. Otherwise the next news broadcast you're a part of will be a memorial." Blitzer nodded and slid quickly off the chair and under the desk. Max could smell the distinct acrid taste of urine. "Raymond Colton!" Max shouted. The goons started grinning. Max saw one of them bending a little low and he fired a shot into his knee. It exploded like a fine crystal ornament and he hit the ground, trying not to scream through his gritting teeth.  
  
"Next one of you dumb sacks of shit moves and you don't have to worry about St. Nick giving you a lump of coal; you'll need to worry about St. Heckler and St. Koch giving you a couple ounces of lead. The door opened to the control room in the loft and a man stepped out. He was broad shouldered and had thinning black hair. His black jacket was gone, but he still wore his white dress shirt and his black suspenders. A fat cigar stub was clenched in his teeth and he was clapping as he came down the stairs. Max hated it when adversaries smiled. There wasn't a word to describe the gut wrenching loathing he felt when they clapped.  
  
"Mr. Morgan, I presume," the man said, a cocky intonation resonating in his voice.. Max knew it was Colton. Only he would be so cocky and that's part of the reason he was fired from Cheerios Medical.  
  
"Mr. Colton," Max said. There was no question. It was an acknowledgement.  
  
"Gillian said that you were slippery. I read her reports thoroughly on you when I heard you were heading for Venus after your little escapade on Earth. Nice work, by the way. My hat really goes off to you for your efforts there," Colton said. He had stopped clapping, but he was still smiling. He took a deep puff of his cigar and he pulled the fat stub from his mouth and exhaled deeply, sending a thick cloud of cherry-vanilla scented smoke into the air.  
  
"Gillian is a slippery little one, herself," Max added. His aim shifted suddenly to another guard that was trying to sneak along the wall. Max put a five round burst into his stomach and then rapidly shifted the muzzle back to Colton. "Looks like you're down to 10 lords a' leaping," Max said, smiling out of one side of his mouth.  
  
"Captain Vallemara is quite the trickster, that's why we hired her. How is her ship, by the way? We know it made it to Tom Robinson's little rock."  
  
"Gillian blew it up on the pad. I don't have your ship, but if it's any consolation I know where about 200 metric tones of scrap metal is sitting. I can get you a memento if you'd like."  
  
"Oh, my good Major Morgan, I do not think that you'll have the opportunity. We know you have her, we just don't know where," Colton said and leaned up against the hand rail. He casually slid one hand into his pocket.  
  
"I don't have your fucking ship," Max said, the sarcasm and humor gone from his voice. "Anders!" he barked. "It's getting stuffy in here, open the windows." A split second later the windows along the wall shattered, the bullets fired into the floor just past them and tore huge holes in the concrete floor. Max didn't even flinch at the maelstrom of glass that exploded into the room. Neither did Colton. The rest of the consortium goons in the room took shelter as best they could. Max took the opportunity to drop his almost spent machine gun and grabbed his pistol. "That is the Twilight. Military identification number X-108. She's a two seater fast attack ship and sitting in her cock pit is one of the best pilots and gunners in the system. Does that look like your fuckin' ship, Colton? Why don't you ask Vallemara again about your missing Megalodon. I'm sure under the right persuasion she'll tell you all about destroying it trying to take out Robinson's."  
  
"Maybe you're right," Colton said, the smile gone from his face as well. "But that is not the reason you came here tonight, is it, Major. You came to stop me from blinding 2 billion souls. You will fail," Colton said, the smile returning to his face. Max twitched and shot another one of Colton's goons, this one in the right elbow.  
  
"9 ladies dancing. I don't think I want to see 8 maids a' milking," Max said, the smile creeping back on his face. "I don't think I'm going to fail. I think you're going to leave the planet in a black zippered bag or wounded as hell in a ship. You'll limp back to the Consortium and they'll demote you back to some little desk job for even trying something as asinine as this, even if there is a bomb. You're just hiding behind your name and an empty threat of your past and the Consortium."  
  
"I'm the only one who can stop the bombs from blowing, Morgan. Besides that, I'm worth 1.5 Million. You should chose smarter threats than to try bluff your way through this. Besides, at best you have 9 shots left in that gun. You can't kill us all."  
  
The Twilight's spot lights flared up, flooding the studio with intense white light.  
  
"Excuse me, Colton was it?" Anders' voice came over the ship's external speakers. "I have a few more shots than just 9 in here. I think you'd better start reconsidering your words. I really don't care if I shoot Morgan, and none of you mean anything to me at all, so if I have to kill the rest of you, that won't bother me one bit. And as for the woolongs? Ha! I laugh at your 1.5 Million. I keep Morgan alive and turn him in, I have 15 Million. I kill you all accidentally, and I still have a ship locked and loaded. I'm sure can get money somehow."  
  
Max, meanwhile, was not idle. He quickly figured out which targets were a priority and which of them could stand to wait the second and a half it would take to finish off the rest of them. He wasn't even sure if he could do it; 9 snap head shots and then emptying what was left of the clip for the HK into the last goon. He had to let Colton live so he'd go back to the Consortium and they'd find and talk to Gillian; though Max had learned a long time ago that any of the syndicates "finding and talking to" anyone was never as innocent as it sounded.  
  
"Anders," Max whispered as she laughed and started talking about the money. "Kill the lights when you're done talking," he said just as quietly. She finished talking and Max watched Colton's face blanch and small beads of sweat formed on his brow. He was bluffing the entire time, Max had been right.  
  
The instant there was a pause in Ander's speech, Max shut his eyes. He heard the lights click off and he flashed them open again. His eyes adjusted to the light much faster than the other 11 men in the room and it gave him the advantage he needed. Max aimed and fired three times before the guards even reacted to his pistol shots. The fifth man was hit before the first one hit the ground. Max's ninth shot had struck true before the fourth man slumped down and Max's hand hit the nearly empty HK as the 10th dove for a Machinegun. He whipped it around and looked at Max as Max opened fire and nearly cut one of his arms off with the quick rake. He reloaded the HK and walked up to Colton who had put his hands out and was still trying to blink away the after-images of the Twilight's spot lights. Max held his gun in cover and strode up to the last syndicate man standing. He picked up his pistol and tucked it back into his belt.  
  
"We'll get you for this, Morgan," Colton spat. Morgan shrugged and smiled. His brows knitted together and he looked down at Colton's feet and then slowly back up.  
  
"Did you wet your pants?" Morgan asked calmly, that smile still on his face. A look of shock hit Colton's face  
  
"What? I didn't." Colton said as he looked down Max dropped the HK and slapped Colton. His head snapped up to look at Max and all he saw was Max take a half step forward and grab his hair simultaneously.  
  
"Merry Christmas," Max said through clenched teeth and pulled his arm down as hard as he could while brining his right knee up. Colton's nose slammed into the top of Max's knee and his hair slid through Max's fingers as Colton flew backward into the iron stair case going up to the control room. "Anders, I think we should be leaving now," Max said quietly and started walking to the broken windows. Anders gently nosed the cock pit of the Twilight into the building and opened the door. Max grabbed it with his left arm and swung himself in. Anders pulled the Twilight back and spun her around. Max pointed to a glowing red light moving across the sky far off in the distance.  
  
"You don't suppose that's." Max said, his eyes twinkling. Anders followed his finger and saw the light as well.  
  
"That's not Rudolf you moron. That's a fuckin' cop."  
  
"Oh," Max said. He sighed heavily and leaned back; for a second, Max looked disappointed. 


End file.
